Explanation Beats Context: The Effect of Timing & Rationales on Users' Runtime Permission Decisions

Current mobile platforms leave it up to the app developer to decide when to request permissions (timing) and whether to provide explanations why and how users' private data are accessed (rationales). Given these liberties, it is important to understand how developers should use timing and rationales to effectively assist users in their permission decisions. While guidelines and recommendations for developers exist, no study has systematically investigated the actual influence of timing, rationales, and their combinations on users' decision-making process. In this work, we conducted a comparative online study with 473 participants who were asked to interact with mockup apps drawn from a pool of 120 variations of 30 apps. The study design was guided by developers' current permission request practices derived from a dynamic analysis of the top apps on Google Play. Our results show that there is a clear interplay between timing and rationales on users' permission decisions and the evaluation of their decisions, making the effect of rationales stronger when shown upfront and limiting the effect of timing when rationales are present. We therefore suggest adaptation to the available guidelines. We also find that permission decisions depend on the individuality of users, indicating that there is no one-fits-all permission request strategy, upon we suggest better individual support and outline one possible solution.