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Abstract

Participants recruited on Amazon’s Mechanical Turk performed a series of tasks in which they chose two Android apps from a list of six. Summary risk/safety information for each app was displayed in the form of one to five filled circles: The number of filled circles specified increasing risk for half of the participants and increasing safety for the other half. This summary information influenced the participants’ decisions, particularly when the app had high user ratings and when the decision was framed in terms of safety rather than risk. Participants indicated that they attended more to the risk/safety information when it was conveyed as amount of safety, and they showed better comprehension of what the index was conveying for safety as opposed to risk. The results imply that development of a valid risk/safety index for apps will improve users’ app-selection decisions, particularly if that information is displayed as amount of safety.

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Framing of Summary Risk/Safety Information and App Selection

Abstract

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