“Det är en brist på kontroll som gör en otrygg...”

: En studie om att förebygga trakasserier och öka tryggheten för användare som registrerar sig som kvinna på plattformar för nätdejting.

Abstract

Media reports that women are exposed to harassment on platforms for online dating and surveys show that women to a greater extent experience harassment on platforms for online dating, more often are sexually harassed online and in a higher extent are upset when being harassed. The purpose of the study is to investigate what functions women believe can affect security and prevent harassment such as stalking and sexual harassment on platforms for online dating. In previous studies there are clear indications that women experience harassment on platforms on online dating and some of these studies resulted in design proposals. It is not clear whether users have been involved in the process of producing these proposals. With inspiration from participative design, where users and designers learn from each other, we wanted to involve female users to explore what they believe affects security and what functions they need in order to create security and prevent harassment.Through interviews and focus groups with women between the age 18-36, we discussed problems, functions, scenarios and solutions. We have been able to identify some elements which affect safety. The result shows, among other things, that some functions that are present in several platforms do not contribute to creating safety. We present findings that we believe can affect safety; trust, integrity and control, third-party verification and transparency. We also present design recommendations for designers and developers of platforms for online dating, which can contribute to increase safety and could prevent harassment on platforms for online dating.