Enhancing game-based learning through infographics in the context of smart home security

Constantly evolving advances of smart home devices features require users to persistently keep up with safety concerns. While update reports and news articles are common ways to keep them informed, many users struggle in thoroughly understanding and applying available security recommendations. Educational games have proven to be an intuitive way to increase the incentive for awareness but many of them come short to convey the needed supporting knowledge. In an attempt to raise security awareness on smart home devices, we designed an educational game to demonstrate the latest security challenges and solutions. To ascertain users’ attention and motivation, we have developed two versions of the game to contrast the integration of text and infographics as supporting knowledge which are the hints in this case. Our evaluations give evidence that viewing security-related content with a higher deployment of infographics improves users’ performance significantly, increases users’ interest in the topic, and creates higher levels of confidence solving security problems and complexities.