Reflection and Insight into Co-Creating a Digital Literacy Game with a Non-academic Partner: A Case Report

Children’s technology use often exposes them to various online risks, creating a need to improve their digital literacy skills and equip them with strategies to protect themselves online. We used a design-based approach to design and develop a digital literacy game for 11–13 year-olds. The game has since been deployed to over 550 elementary schools. In this case report, we use a design narrative to discuss our process of designing and implementing the game with a non-academic partner over four years. The process of designing digital literacy tools is largely undocumented, which prevents designers from learning best practices from prior work. We provide recommendations for creating digital literacy multimedia tools, key features to support deployment, and lessons learned while working with a non-academic partner to create digital literacy products with real-world impact. Our work provides insights into designing digital literacy tools for children which may be useful to other designers and researchers.