The Fact Finder

Collaborators | Pin-Chun Lu; Taiwan FactCheck Center

Fact Finder is an interactive web-based mini game designed to improve AI literacy and media literacy by teaching users how to verify information, recognize misinformation, and understand fact-checking processes through hands-on practice.

Through interviews and early testing with young users (ages 15–25), we observed several recurring attitudes toward misinformation and fact-checking:

• Users often rely on intuition or simply ignore suspicious content instead of verifying it.
• Fact-checking is perceived as time-consuming, difficult, or overly professional.
• Many users are unsure which platforms or organizations can be trusted.
• The consequences of misinformation are poorly understood and feel abstract.

These insights revealed that the core challenge was not a lack of concern, but a high perceived barrier to action.

Based on our research, we defined the central problem as follows:

Audiences who primarily consume information through digital and social media NEED a low-friction way to learn and practice fact-checking, BECAUSE existing tools feel inaccessible, untrustworthy, or too demanding for everyday use.

Our design goal was therefore to lower the threshold of fact-checking—making it feel approachable, practical, and relevant to daily life.

We explored multiple approaches to media literacy education and identified interactive gameplay as the most promising direction. Compared to traditional lectures or videos, games can:

• Encourage active participation and curiosity
• Provide immediate feedback and learning reinforcement
• Simulate real-world decision-making scenarios

This led to the concept of Fact Finder: an interactive fact-checking detective game that guides players through realistic misinformation cases using step-by-step challenges.

The prototype consists of a mobile-first web game with the following structure:

① Progressive Game Levels

• Scenarios range from basic to advanced difficulty
• Players answer questions based on images, headlines, and contextual clues

② Hands-on Fact-Checking Practice

• Guided prompts introduce techniques such as reverse image search and source comparison
• Players learn by applying methods, not memorizing rules

③ Immediate Feedback

• Correctness is shown instantly
• Explanations clarify why an answer is right or wrong

④ Motivation & Sharing

• Scores and detective levels reflect users’ fact-checking ability
• Results can be shared, encouraging peer discussion and awareness

We conducted multiple rounds of testing (N = 4 → 8 → 38) to evaluate effectiveness:

• 82% of users reported improved understanding of fact-checking concepts
• 84% felt more familiar with fact-checking methods and tools
• 87% gained better awareness of available fact-checking platforms
• 74% reported increased willingness to perform fact-checking in the future

Participants highlighted that the game made fact-checking feel “less intimidating,” “more practical,” and “surprisingly engaging.”