Puppy Valley: An App-Mediated Board Game to Enhance Scam And Fraud Awareness Among US Seniors

Scams and fraud have become a significant problem for the American population within the past few years. While victims range from young to older adults, it is the seniors who are the major targets. In 2018 the Federal Trade Commission reported that senior citizens aged 60 years and above formed 35% of all the scam victims it recorded. According to the U.S Senate Committee on aging, scams like the grandparent scam, IRS impersonation scam, romance scam; have become popular. Even at this level of notoriety, most victims are usually unaware of it entirely or how its perpetrators commit these crimes. Being aware of the situation is a critical step towards curbing this problem. This thesis project uses User-Centered Design (UCD) to understand, conceptualize, and prototype a solution to promote social interaction while improving the cognitive abilities of seniors and creating awareness about fraud. The design requirements and direction were formed through multivariate research methods like literature review, user interviews, and focus group sessions. The proposed solution is Puppy valley, an app-mediated trivia board game that has a physical wheel and mobile application and uses narratives inspired by real fraud cases to create activities for users to play with. After the research and design, the game was evaluated by five experts, and refinements within the scope of the study were made based on the insights from the evaluation.