TY - GEN
T1 - Player Safety by Design
T2 - 2026 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, CHI 2026
AU - Zhang, Zinan
AU - Song, Qiurong
AU - Hernandez, Rie Helene (lindy)
AU - Liu, Yunhan
AU - Koung, Elena
AU - Yu, Junnan
AU - Bai, Sunhye
AU - Kou, Yubo
AU - Gui, Xinning
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2026 Copyright held by the owner/author(s).
PY - 2026/4/13
Y1 - 2026/4/13
N2 - Gaming is a meaningful part of children's lives, yet its safety has drawn increasing concerns from scholars and the public. On platforms like Roblox, children may encounter extremist roleplay, scams, or virtual rape. Prior research has emphasized technical interventions that address risks after they occur and ethical frameworks for game design, but children's perspectives on safety design remain missing. To address this gap, we conducted a cooperative inquiry study to co-design safety mechanisms with 22 children aged 7-12. Children proposed designs emphasizing transparent information about games and purchases, community accountability through reporting and reviews, player empowerment to manage social boundaries and engagement, and age-appropriate game navigation. Our findings extend safety-by-design research by foregrounding children's perspectives, showing how they envision safety mechanisms across both game and platform design, while enjoying safe play through risk exposure, allocating trust, and balancing platform support with agency.
AB - Gaming is a meaningful part of children's lives, yet its safety has drawn increasing concerns from scholars and the public. On platforms like Roblox, children may encounter extremist roleplay, scams, or virtual rape. Prior research has emphasized technical interventions that address risks after they occur and ethical frameworks for game design, but children's perspectives on safety design remain missing. To address this gap, we conducted a cooperative inquiry study to co-design safety mechanisms with 22 children aged 7-12. Children proposed designs emphasizing transparent information about games and purchases, community accountability through reporting and reviews, player empowerment to manage social boundaries and engagement, and age-appropriate game navigation. Our findings extend safety-by-design research by foregrounding children's perspectives, showing how they envision safety mechanisms across both game and platform design, while enjoying safe play through risk exposure, allocating trust, and balancing platform support with agency.
KW - Child Player
KW - Co-design
KW - Cooperative Inquiry
KW - Online Safety
KW - Roblox
KW - Safe by Design
KW - User-Generated Game
KW - Video Game
UR - https://www.scopus.com/pages/publications/105038679051
U2 - 10.1145/3772318.3791090
DO - 10.1145/3772318.3791090
M3 - Conference article published in proceeding or book
AN - SCOPUS:105038679051
T3 - Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems - Proceedings
BT - CHI 2026 - Proceedings of the 2026 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems
PB - Association for Computing Machinery
Y2 - 13 April 2026 through 17 April 2026
ER -