An online gaming company approached us to evaluate the accuracy of different age verification methods and understand the experiences of children, parents, and young adults using these methods in a gaming context.
Ensuring children’s safety online: Evaluating age verification methods for an online gaming company
Challenge
The client wanted to comply with the UK regulatory guidance on children’s online safety and protect younger audiences from harmful and inappropriate content by effectively estimating the age of users and tailoring protection accordingly. Therefore, we needed to test the effectiveness, ease of use, and user experience of various age verification methods to ensure the solution worked.
Approach
We conducted 45-minute task-based sessions with young adults and children-parent dyads and 60-minute interviews with parents of gamers. We asked participants to verify their age using different personal identification documents in a high-fidelity, functioning prototype that displayed the age verification methods and 60-minute interviews with parents of gamers. We also asked them to rank and rate their user experience, sentiment, trust, and preferences towards each method. We used statistical analysis to determine the algorithm’s accuracy in correctly categorizing each participant’s age and identifying false positives.
Outcome
We conducted 45-minute task-based sessions with young adults and children-parent dyads and 60-minute interviews with parents of gamers. We asked participants to verify their age using different personal identification documents in a high-fidelity, functioning prototype that displayed the age verification methods and 60-minute interviews with parents of gamers. We also asked them to rank and rate their user experience, sentiment, trust, and preferences towards each method. We used statistical analysis to determine the algorithm’s accuracy in correctly categorizing each participant’s age and identifying false positives.