Research Outputs

Publications & Presentations

Published and forthcoming research, reports, and scholarly presentations that sit behind my portfolio work: deceptive design, children and games, human-centered cybersecurity, developer motivation, misinformation, game studies pedagogy, digital media, and the social conditions that shape whether systems become safer.

Published

Peer-Reviewed Research

Formal academic publications and research outputs with public links.

Journal of Cybersecurity / Oxford University Press / 2025

Software security in practice: knowledge and motivation

Authors: Hala Assal, Srivathsan G. Morkonda, Muhammad Zaid Arif, Sonia Chiasson.

Venue: Journal of Cybersecurity, published by Oxford University Press.

This paper examines how software developers acquire security knowledge and what motivates or prevents them from adopting secure development practices. The work connects developer learning, workplace context, and self-determination theory to show why security cannot be treated as only a tooling problem.

Software SecurityDeveloper MotivationUsable SecurityInterview Research
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Human-Centric Cybersecurity Partnership Report / 2024

Misinformation & Cybersecurity

Full title: Misinformation & Cybersecurity: Examining the Threat of Misinformation to Digital Media.

Organization: Human-Centric Cybersecurity Partnership (HC2P), 2024.

This report frames misinformation as a cybersecurity threat to digital media, including social media, AI, deepfakes, public trust, democratic processes, and the need for coordinated responses such as literacy, prebunking, fact-checking, labelling, detection tools, regulation, and cross-sector collaboration.

MisinformationCybersecurityDigital MediaPublic Trust
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Presented

Conference Presentations

Research presentations and scholarly talks without formal proceedings.

Cybersecurity and Privacy Institute / University of Waterloo / 2025

Tweens' perceptions of deceptive design in video games

Authors: Muhammad Zaid Arif, Sonia Chiasson; Sana Maqsood.

Presented: Cybersecurity and Privacy Institute (CPI) Graduate Student Conference, University of Waterloo, 2025.

Poster and paper presentation sharing research on how tweens perceive and respond to deceptive design patterns in video games. The work used game video scenarios, semi-structured interviews, transcription, and thematic analysis to examine perceptions of manipulation, FOMO, financial restraint, social pressure, time-consuming mechanics, and broader consequences.

Deceptive DesignTweensGamesHCIPoster
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Canadian Game Studies Association / Virtual / 2022

Incorporating the Bolton Special Collection into Game Studies Pedagogy at UTM

Authors: Michael Nixon, Muhammad Zaid Arif, Shantanu Aeron.

Presented: Canadian Game Studies Association 2022, Virtual, June 4, 2022.

This presentation explored how the Syd Bolton Collection at the University of Toronto Mississauga Library could support game studies pedagogy through digital exhibits, curation, and student-led research. Muhammad's exhibit work focused on the evolution of realism in first-person shooters, including military-entertainment history, realism, interface conventions, and the challenge of balancing research context with visual material.

Game StudiesPedagogyDigital ExhibitsCurationUTM

Note: This conference did not publish proceedings. Presentation document available on request; future journal adaptation may follow after additional research on exhibit-based pedagogy.

Forthcoming

In Progress

Accepted or camera-ready research that is not yet formally published in proceedings.

ACM IDC 2026 / Brighton, United Kingdom

Understanding Deception: A qualitative study of children's interactions with deceptive design in digital games

Authors: Muhammad Zaid Arif, Asra Sakeen Wani, Ananta Chowdhury, Sana Maqsood, Sonia Chiasson.

Status: Forthcoming in the Proceedings of the 25th Interaction Design and Children Conference, June 22-25, 2026, Brighton, United Kingdom.

This paper presents a qualitative study with 18 children aged 11-13 using video-based scenarios to examine how children perceive and react to deceptive design patterns in popular digital games, including FOMO, streaks, grind-to-unlock systems, obfuscated information, and social pressure.

IDC 2026ChildrenDeceptive DesignDigital GamesQualitative Research
DOI Coming Soon

Research that looks at people inside systems.

My publications sit at the intersection of human behavior, security, digital media, motivation, trust, and responsible technology.

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