User Archetypes for Effective Information Privacy Communication

In an information systems context, information privacy communication will only work if information systems meet the information needs of their users. Since the needs are neither static nor uniform, a promising approach avoiding inadequacies of ignoring differences in users’ information needs and more practical than dedicated attention to each individual user is to target information privacy communication to user archetypes. To identify such archetypes, we conduct a survey eliciting users’ information needs and apply hierarchical clustering to derive a hierarchical model of user archetypes with respect to their information privacy information needs. We identify a total of 13 archetypes on two hierarchy levels. In contrast to extant research on information privacy user archetypes focusing on information privacy attitudes, the identified information privacy user archetypes are based on information system characteristics desired by users as elicited through our survey. Thus, they yield clear input for enhancing information system design with respect to information privacy. Our research highlights differences and similarities between archetypes and enriches it with an interpretatively derived characterization of the different archetypes. The resulting archetype hierarchy serves as foundation for future research aiming to improve communication of information privacy practices.