A Bridge too Far: Low Literacy and Cybersecurity Materials

Abstract

Accessibility is emerging as the third dimension of cybersecurity design, addressing the growing concern that dependence on digital services is creating disparities in vulnerable populations. While many factors influence the effectiveness of cybersecurity materials, most materials providing security advice are written at a high school or college level. This means over 30% of the United States adult population would struggle to understand them. To explore how the gap between standard materials and the average reading level might be bridged, we contextualized guidelines for low-literacy design in the cybersecurity domain. Three main considerations – text characteristics, focused content, and graphic design – were used to redesign text-based cybersecurity materials. A mixed factorial design was used to evaluate the effectiveness of the redesigned materials for university students at higher and lower literacy levels. The study found that participants with lower literacy levels scored lower on cybersecurity knowledge tests and tended to rate all cybersecurity materials (standard and redesigned for low literacy) less favorably than participants with higher literacy levels. Surprisingly, although materials were redesigned to objectively improve the communication of cybersecurity information, those materials did not impact post-test measures of cybersecurity knowledge and the materials were rated as less effective. These findings suggest that changes intended to simplify content may have unintended consequences, potentially limiting the design’s effectiveness.

Keywords: Literacy, Inclusive Design, Instructional Materials, Cybersecurity

DOI: 10.54941/ahfe1007998