Abstract
Given children’s pervasive use of digital technology there is a need to educate them on how to behave safely online and improve their digital literacy. Digital literacy represents the set of skills and competencies children need to successfully function in a digital society, including skills in security and privacy. I used an iterative user-centered process to design a web-based game to educate 11-13 year old children about digital literacy topics. The game has been deployed to 170 Canadian elementary schools by our educational partner MediaSmarts. We conducted three empirical user studies to evaluate the usability and effectiveness of the game at different stages of the design process. Results from our summative study showed that children’s digital literacy knowledge and intended behaviour improved significantly immediately after playing the game and one week later. They also found the game usable, fun, and relatable. Insights from our work can be used to inform the design of future educational games.

Biography
Sana Maqsood is a Computer Science PhD student at Carleton University. She has over 10-years of industry, government and academic experience in HCI, security, and web development. Her current research focuses on developing games to improve end users mental models of security and privacy. She has also worked in the area of user authentication, looking at alternative password schemes on flexible display devices.