How do software users read software installation agreements? An eye-tracking experiment.

Abstract

Software piracy raises issues of information ethics. Prior studies indicated that college students usually offer reasonable excuses for using pirated software, and feel that their behavior does not have any significant negative effects. In fact, before installing any software, users are required to read legal disclaimers; however, it is unclear how they read such disclaimers related to intellectual property or copyright violation. The purpose of this study is thus to explore software users’ reading behavior before installing software. An eye-tracking device was used to carry out a randomly-displayed three-scenario experiment, with the aid of 28 volunteer participants. The results showed that the keyword mode was the best scenario with regard to attracting user attention to the key content. Significant differences were found between this mode and the other two with regard to total fixation duration time and total fixation count.