Socio-Design Literacy
Overview
This project investigates: 1. How design features—algorithms, notification systems, interface patterns—shape perceived autonomy and critical awareness among teenagers. 2. Gaps in digital literacy frameworks, particularly for students with limited support at home and in lower-income contexts. 3. Connections between algorithmic awareness, socio-economic factors, and children’s rights (UNCRC Articles 13 and 17).
Year:
2023
Category:
UX Research & Design
/
Service Design
The Challenge
The project was initiated in response to consistent feedback from teenagers, educators, and carers: young people feel subject to, not in charge of, their digital environments. This lack of agency is intensified by a widespread gap in critical digital literacy. Most users, teachers, and parents are unfamiliar with the mechanics and psychology of platform design, and therefore ill-equipped to intervene.
The early context work made clear:
Digital exclusion is patterned across lines of income and resource. Lower-income young people spend more time subject to platform algorithms and have less access to adult support.
Existing “digital detox” interventions lack evidence and rarely tackle root structural influences or explain persuasive design.
There is a strong link between understanding of algorithmic systems and a sense of social and political efficacy online (supporting recent literature and UNCRC frameworks)
The Solution
Sociodesign Literacy is a proposed framework for a blended educational experience aimed at 13–14 year olds. Developed through an honours project and ongoing academic research, this approach brings together secondary research, stakeholder interviews (with headteachers and educators), and persona/empathy mapping focused on the realities of underserved learners.
Key features of the framework:
Learning modules exploring persuasive design, algorithmic curation, and critical digital literacy
Activities that use Universal Design principles to ensure accessibility and adaptability for diverse learners
Interactive lessons where students map their social media habits, critique platform interfaces, simulate filter bubbles, and collectively address real-world platform dilemmas
Resources for parents and teachers informed by evidence, aiming to raise algorithmic awareness and support children’s rights (UNCRC Article 13 & 17)
Onboarding: Learners join their digital “classroom” as students and reflect on baseline behaviours, attitudes, and influences (their own and their household’s).
Activity 1: Interactive learning on interface design—students dissect and annotate real social media feeds, identifying persuasive and manipulative features, supported by quizzes and immediate feedback.
Activity 2: Collective problem-solving—students work in teams to analyse a social media company’s motivations, design choices, and the frictions between user and company interests. Presentations and discussion foreground how design relates to collaboration and conflict.
Activity 3: Algorithmic “filter bubble” simulation—learners experience alternative content feeds and compare these to their own, linking interface to information access and bias.
Multiple rounds of user testing led to concrete improvements: more inviting onboarding, visible ‘About’ sections with student-driven CTAs, adjustments to interface elements to remove screen friction, and improved navigation for learners using assistive technology.
All educational interventions are explicitly mapped to UNCRC Articles 13 and 17:
Enabling young people to identify and unpack algorithmic filtering, persuasive techniques, and the function of notification architecture.
Supporting students from lower-income households, who are underrepresented in digital policy work and most disadvantaged by the opacity of platforms.
Encouraging critical literacy as a base for civic participation and digital autonomy, not as a one-off “safeguarding” task.
Next Steps
Sociodesign Literacy is ready to grow. The proposed next phase aims to create a developed curriculum and research framework into something testable, responsive, and genuinely useful for young people and schools.
Plans include:
Refining the curriculum and digital interface with updated research and feedback.
Mapping out the information ecosystem to make connections clear for learners and educators.
Shifting the definition of autonomy from individual to collective, building in social and civic perspectives.
Piloting a live classroom programme, prioritising strong user experience and accessibility.
Recruiting collaborators and technical partners to build a functional, adaptable platform.
Bringing in expert voices (misinformation, AI, online harm) to create new modules and connect the project to urgent digital challenges.
Exploring life-centred and posthumanist design, plus small-scale AI tools, to help users see their habits and influence within digital systems.
