“A long standing goal of usable privacy and security (UPS) research is to align end-user behaviors with expert suggestions, such as through developing tools to increase user control and awareness of security and privacy (S&P) threats. These approaches, while necessary, are not sufficient to combat the ubiquitous slow violence of S&P harms that impede on people’s motivation to change and erode their trust in the institutions in which experts are often entrenched. We propose that we can only effect true change and rebuild trust with users if we first deconstruct our norms of telling users what’s best and expecting them to comply. We draw from concepts in critical computing, design, and games research, to propose a research agenda–Transformational Provocation–that involves provoking transformation in not just users’ S&P knowledge, skills, or behaviors, but also their senses of truth, self, relationships, and society. Moreover, we demonstrate the value and application of our framework through illustrative case studies. With this framework, we call upon the UPS community to pursue new design opportunities for engendering organic and enduring intrinsic motivation for people to act on their S&P, both on their own and together.”

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