Tangible Interfaces for Privacy Negotiation in Shared Homes

Aufgabenstellung / Topic

Privacy decisions in sensor-rich environments, such as smart homes, often involve multiple people with different preferences and expectations. For example, one household member may be comfortable with a device that collects data, while another may prefer stricter privacy protections. Current privacy controls are typically designed for individual users and accessed through mobile apps or settings menus, making it difficult to negotiate shared privacy decisions collaboratively. In this thesis, you will explore how tangible interfaces can support collaborative privacy decision-making in shared environments. The goal is to design and prototype a physical or ambient system that visualizes privacy preferences and enables household members to negotiate and reach mutually acceptable configurations.

You will:

• Review literature on privacy in shared environments, tangible interfaces, and collaborative decision-making
• Identify common privacy conflicts and negotiation scenarios in multi-user smart environments
• Design a tangible interface that represents privacy preferences of multiple users
• Develop a working prototype
• Conduct a user study to explore how participants negotiate privacy settings using the interface
• Analyze how tangible representations influence decision-making, conflict resolution, and satisfaction
• Summarize findings in a thesis and (optionally) contribute to a research publication

You need:

• Interest in human-computer interaction, tangible interfaces, and privacy research
• Experience with basic electronics and physical prototyping (e.g., through the course Sketching with Hardware)
• Programming skills for prototyping interactive behaviors (e.g., Python, JavaScript, or Processing)
• Motivation to conduct user studies and analyze qualitative and quantitative data
• Curiosity about multi-user interactions and negotiation processes in smart environments