Abstract

Privacy interfaces often fail because they rely on technical jargon rather than clearly communicating the consequences of data sharing. Grounding our approach in Situational Awareness theory, we developed the Privacy Nudge Evaluation Framework (PNEF) to assess the efficacy of privacy controls across perception, comprehension, and projection. This paper details a cross-platform evaluation applying the PNEF to 14 major digital platforms using expert ratings and a two-way repeated-measures ANOVA. Our results reveal a critical, systemic design flaw: while platforms perform adequately at helping users perceive settings, "Projection"—the ability for users to understand the future implications of their choices—consistently lags. This foundational finding demonstrates that current interfaces fail to support informed consent and underscores the urgent need for a paradigm shift toward consequence-aware privacy design.