Supporting privacy by preventing misclosure.

Despite extensive concerns about privacy and multiple potential consequences of revealing personal information, many users still experience invasions of privacy when interacting with technology. For this reason, privacy is an important and complex issue in HCI. This thesis focuses on specific psychological issues of privacy in HCI, primarily the accidental disclosure of information or misclosure. Using multiple methods including focus groups, a diary study, and an experimental manipulation, this thesis seeks to catalog the incidence of such errors, identify the interface issues associated with each type of error, and provide design recommendations for preventing each type of disclosure error.