Work

"What a stupid way to do business": Towards an Understanding of Older Adults' Perceptions of Deceptive Patterns and Ways to Develop Resistance

Year: 2024

Type: article

Abstract: There are growing efforts to reduce the harmful effects of deceptive patterns pervasively employed on e-commerce websites. However, efforts to produce new guidelines and introduce ethical design standards geared towards older adults have been limited. We investigate the potential of a serious game in fostering older adults' resilience against manipulative designs in e-commerce through two studies. First, a survey with older adults (N = 61), explored their attitudes towards deceptive patterns and identified characteristics influencing them. We then created a serious game, 'Shopopolis', to bolster older adults' resistance to manipulative designs online and evaluated its efficacy with older adults (N = 65). Our findings show that Shopopolis is a valuable tool for enhancing awareness, concern, and recognition skills related to e-commerce deceptive patterns. We discuss older adults' unique perspectives on deceptive patterns and consider how insights can shape the design of targeted protective measures like Shopopolis for older adults in e-commerce contexts.

Source: Proceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction

DOI: 10.1145/3677113

Authors: Kalya Win Aung, Ewan Soubutts, Aneesha Singh

Institution: University College London

Language: English

Topic: Technology Use by Older Adults

Subfield: Demography

Field: Social Sciences

Domain: Social Sciences

SDG: Good health and well-being

Open Access status: green

Funders: Universitas Brawijaya, Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council