Since the foundation of this theory is that informed consent is a communicative transaction, in order to waive the normative expectations identified by the guidelines above (and shown in the examples from section 3.2.3) it is now necessary that we discuss the manner in which the informed consent transaction should take place. Since information technology largely relies on text and images as the most accessible forms of information transfer, it is important to restrict the media for communication to text and images so that the broadest audience is reached. Newer technology such as movies or animations are not as accessible, since not all computers can handle them appropriately, and sound may not be available, so restriction of media to text and still images is highly important. Screen readers for sight-impaired people and other disability measures need to be taken into account in the communication framework, so use of alternative text for images and similar mechanisms need to be used to make the communication as clear and accessible as possible.
The methods of communication currently used in informed consent situations in information technology are based on the idea of the requirement for disclosure. Often they comprise legal contracts, such as with privacy policies or End User License Agreements, which are written in a highly legal language (often termed ``legalese''), and are often long and complex (such as the End User License Agreements studied in Chapter 2). Although communication through information technology mostly uses text, as mentioned above, there are human limits on how much information can be digested before the user is stressed by the amount of information there is and cannot process it properly, the phenomenon known as information overload [Mulder et al., 2006], that can lead to what Friedman et al. call ``numbness'' [Friedman et al., 2000]. This means that in order to minimise this information overload, as much as possible needs to be done to make it easy for readers to easily absorb the information.
This does not preclude the use of legally binding contracts. These can be written or summarised in plain language and supplemented with other methods of explanation of the information being communicated. The aim for this communication transfer is to ensure that when a user waives a normative expectation, it means that the user has successfully received the information about that expectation, processed it, understood it, and has then chosen to waive that expectation in an informed consent decision. As the situation currently stands, there is no way to ensure that this happens, since consent-requesters are not typically trying very hard to make the information needed accessible, nor do they tailor the information to suit different audiences and contexts. The waiver system thus essentially provides an informed consent procedure that focuses on the expectations of the user so that the user can be more informed than with the current full-disclosure system.
There are a number of criteria for successful communication transactions, all of which need to be taken into account when planning writing and display of information as well as methods for the acceptance of decisions in order to provide a suitable communication transfer channel. These criteria are: