Uncanny by Design: Exploring Interface Deception Saliency and Detection through Co-Design Activities with Teens

As technology use among junior and senior high school students increases, there remains insufficient understanding of deceptive user interfaces among younger generations (Bongard-Blanchy et al., 2021), including how such groups are affected by the incorporation of this design. Previous studies have primarily focused on elementary school-aged children (Renaud et al., 2024; Schäfer et al., 2024), and the majority of research into deceptive design continues to be conducted in Western countries. The current study investigates how children aged 12-13 in Japan interact with deceptive design in a gacha game, particularly with the aim of seeing whether there exists an 'uncanny' valley of deceptive design: a type of design which is deceptive and yet unnoticed consciously. The study is part of a broader project which will involve co-creation of educational materials on this topic, and will hopefully serve to inform this age group on deceptive design.