5 DISCUSSION
Our study shows the complexity in analysing various
variables connected with human behaviour. The
authors addressed issues such as perception of
security and privacy, adaptable visualization as well
as the context to try to understand the best way to
provide data in mobile applications. Following a
previous work (Muchagata and Ferreira, 2018) where
a set of visualization techniques were analysed in
terms of their potential effect on the confidentiality,
integrity and privacy of mobile data content, this
study advances the state of the art by exploring how
the perceptions of real users are affected depending
on the content and on the adoption of visualization
techniques to present that content to the user.
Regardless if the participants represent doctors or
patients (or even both), the authors considered
relevant and appropriate to know their opinions and
perspectives when they place themselves in both
scenarios.
For the patient’s scenario, and in terms of
confidentiality, every time a particular context is
presented, some participants change their opinion on
what image’s content provides a higher degree of
confidentiality. Commonly in the first image
regarding the menu selection, participants change
their opinion to think that confidentiality is higher
when choosing from a menu when they are at a
pharmacy than when they are at home. Maybe this is
explained by the fact that the type of data they are
accessing relates to health information, which can be
commonly more sensitive. However, when asked the
same question regarding the third image which
includes the results of their search, when the context
is presented, participants change their opinion that
Figure 1 (the one with more personal data content), at
home, is the most secure in terms of confidentiality.
This may be because this information is more related
to the patient’s personal (specific medication) data
and so visualizing this data at home can certainly feel
more secure and trustworthy.
In terms of integrity, for the same patient’s
scenario, answers reveal that there is a big change for
the menu image when there is no context and when
the context is present. Participants favour Figure 2
(the one with less content and visualization
techniques) without the context, but once the context
is presented they change their opinion to favour
Figure 1 (the one with more detailed content and
without visualization techniques) that is viewed at
home. The same happens to the subsequent image
where content is searched. Regarding integrity, the
most chosen secure visualization content is the one
with more detail and viewed at home. What are the
factors that trigger this change? The authors believe
that since integrity is at stake, the more information
and detail available from the searched content, the
better (although this can be confused with
availability) but is not the same for the steps that lead
to search for that data, such as in choosing from
menus. For all options regarding integrity, being at
home is considered safer and more trustworthy than
in a public place.
In terms of availability, participants’ responses
are very consistent and do not change whether context
is present or not. This is also true for the doctor’s
scenario. The visualization content mostly chosen for
availability is Figure 3, which understandably always
comprises the most detailed and complete data, even
though in some cases it could not be considered the
most secure option.
In relation to the doctor’s scenario, there are some
differences in terms of confidentiality. In this case,
there is no variation in the participants’ choice as
Figure 4, the ones with the applied visualization
techniques (and therefore with less and more focused
content), are always chosen. For the doctor’s scenario
the context does not interfere with the perception of
security and privacy unless the content is the menu of
choices (the first image in the sequence), so for all
others it seems that the applied visualization
techniques have, alone, an impact in that choice. For
integrity in this same scenario, there is a similar
change from Figure 4 to Figure 3 for the menu option,
but here, for the other two images, the most chosen
ones in the doctor’s scenario are the ones with
visualization techniques, and not the ones with more
detailed content, as for the patients’ results. There are
just small variations when context is present. Again,
it seems apparent that when a health professional is
accessing confidential data the perception of security
for the surveyed participants is that patient data
should be more controlled and contained than when it
is a patient accessing that data, even if that access is
performed at a public place, such as a coffee shop.
Here the context “home” is not the one providing a
higher sense of trust and integrity, visualization
techniques seem to override that.
Limitations. Despite encountering a few examples of
the use of adaptive visualization techniques in mobile
applications, the authors could not find a clear and
detailed methodology and procedures that could help
with their implementation in practice, especially
within the fields of security and privacy. Also, this
study had time and management constraints with the
application of the online questionnaire within the
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