Scrollytelling as an Alternative Format for Privacy Policies
2026-03-04 • Human-Computer Interaction
Human-Computer Interaction
AI summaryⓘ
The authors studied a new way to show privacy policies called scrollytelling, which mixes the full text with animated visuals as you scroll. In their study, this method made people more interested, less mentally tired, and more willing to use it compared to plain text. It also helped people understand the policies just as well as other popular formats. The authors found only small effects on how much users felt they understood or trusted the policies. They suggest scrollytelling can make reading privacy policies easier without losing clarity.
Privacy PolicyInformed ConsentScrollytellingUser EngagementCognitive LoadComprehension AccuracyTransparencyTrustInteractive Visualization
Authors
Gonzalo Gabriel Méndez, Jose Such
Abstract
Privacy policies are long, complex, and rarely read, which limits their effectiveness in informed consent. We investigate scrollytelling, a scroll-driven narrative approach, as a privacy policy presentation format. We built a prototype that interleaves the full policy text with animated visuals to create a dynamic reading experience. In an online study (N=454), we compared our tool against text, two nutrition-label variants, and a standalone interactive visualization. Scrollytelling improved user experience over text, yielding higher engagement, lower cognitive load, greater willingness to adopt the format, and increased perceived clarity. It also matched other formats on comprehension accuracy and confidence, with only one nutrition-label variant performing slightly better. Changes in perceived understanding, transparency, and trust were small and statistically inconclusive. These findings suggest that scrollytelling can preserve comprehension while enhancing the experience of policy reading. We discuss design implications for accessible policy communication and identify directions for increasing transparency and user trust.