Designing Risk Communication for Older Adults

Older adults are more susceptible to fraud than younger adults offline. This may be true online as well. Older adults are also increasingly using the Internet for various activities, including managing their financial assets. Therefore, there is a need to develop risk communication technologies targeted towards older adults. These technologies should leverage mental models of end users to communicate risk in an accessible manner. Research in cognition suggests that risk communication using videos rather than text leads to improved comprehension and thus, better understanding of risks. We developed narrative-driven risk communication videos that address online fraud. These videos can be used for stand alone security education or as just-in-time decision aids. In this paper we present the design of such videos for phishing and malware. We also report results of a pilot study to measure the effectiveness of these videos. The study had twelve participants.