Improving Cookie Consent Notice Usability and Communication via Design Science Research

Cookie consent notices have become increasingly popular worldwide, especially since the introduction of the GDPR. Their purpose is to gain consent for data collection and processing (including tracking) from website users. However, privacy notices and controls are ineffective at informing end-users. Furthermore, they often hinder users from expressing their privacy choices. Research has shown that most individuals appear not to be empowered to practice their rights to online privacy and lawful consenting. There are substantial ethical, legal and commercial reasons to improve cookie consent notices so that privacy policies are understood, consent is informed, and individuals have the power to choose whether and how personal information is collected and processed. This research describes the development of a solution to improve the communication and usability of cookie consent notices as a response to the weaknesses of current approaches.A working instantiation of a cookie consent notice comprised of deployable code and graphical interface components was developed as a possible solution. A Design Science Research (DSR) approach was used. The DSR artefact was compared to a selection of prevalent cookie consent notice types used in South Africa. Three evaluation rounds took place, focused on usability and communication. This dataset is the raw, anonymised data collected from each of the three evaluations. The final design artefact exists in a separate open-source code repository (GitHub) for practitioners to use, develop and extend.