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5.3.5 Minimal configuration and standard settings
A problem described in existing literature on social systems, is the users resistance to complex
privacy settings. In this system the users are only asked for privacy settings when connecting to
friends, and there it is only one choice a user has to take; whether or not to be shown on the map.
This privacy setting has no standard setting, because the user has to choose it before being able to
connect to the friend. Therefore the user is forced to take a stand to this question.
5.3.6 Grouping of friends
Another mechanism mentioned in the preliminary study, is the possibility to group friends and
have different privacy setting for each group. This is not implemented in The FriendRadar. The
main reason for this is that the test user group probably would have been placed in the same group,
since all the participants are classmates. Another reason is that the users are offered a privacy
setting towards each friend rather then toward a group of friends. When there exists only one
privacy setting, it is not of much effort to configure this setting towards each friend, rather that
towards a group. It would have been more preferable to use a grouping mechanism if the privacy
setting between friends had been more complex.
5.3.7 Feedback when localised
Another issue discussed both by other authors and in the preliminary study, is the importance of
being notified when localised by other users. This is not implemented in the prototype, but could be
a possible mechanism to be implemented in a commercial system. The main reason why it is not
implemented is that the users usually localise many of their friends at a time, and every user may
not be interesting. Therefore, a user can get an irrelevant notice about she is being localised. A
possible solution could be that a user gets notice if a friend opens her profile and from there can see
her location.
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