Human-Centered Design of Digital Finance Security Identification and Intervention for High-Risk Populations

PhD Thesis Proposal Defence


Title: "Human-Centered Design of Digital Finance Security Identification and
Intervention for High-Risk Populations"

by

Miss Yue DENG


Abstract:

As financial systems become increasingly digitalized and automated, high-risk
populations, especially older adults with limited technological experience or low
confidence in technology use, are entering a digital finance environment that is
faster and more complex than ever before. In this setting, financial security risk is
not solely a matter of technical flaws; it is a socio-technical problem in
everyday interactions. Building on this view, this thesis takes a human-centered
approach to examine how financial security risk is perceived at the individual
level, how it is buffered or amplified within social systems such as families, and
how interventions can be designed to help high-risk users learn to identify and
respond to risk.

By examining older adults' experiences with highly automated financial
interactions such as biometric payment, this dissertation shows that when
authentication and authorization are compressed into frictionless interactions,
older adults may struggle to form accurate understandings of what is happening,
what could go wrong, and what control they retain, creating gaps between
objective protections and perceived safety. I then broaden the lens from
individuals to the social systems in which digital finance security is embedded.
Through studying family safeguarding, I characterize how family members often
serve as an informal security infrastructure, monitoring, advising, and intervening
to prevent loss, while also revealing the limitations and costs of this arrangement,
including delayed disclosure, interpersonal tension, and the burdens placed on
family supporters. Leveraging these insights, I investigate how to design
interventions that help high-risk users build practical capability to handle digital
finance risk without presuming constant family involvement. I develop and
evaluate a role-based intervention that draws on the inherently social nature of
fraud encounters to support learning and resistance. Together, these
contributions demonstrate that protecting high-risk users in digital finance
requires moving beyond technical safeguards and generalized awareness, toward
context-sensitive, human-centered approaches that account for how risk is
perceived, how it is socially mediated, and how effective responses can be
learned.


Date:                   Thursday, 26 February 2026

Time:                   10:30am - 12:30pm

Venue:                  Room 3494
                        Lift 25/26

Committee Members:      Prof. Bo Li (Supervisor)
                        Dr. May Fung (Chairperson)
                        Dr. Xiaojuan Ma