Abstract

This thesis investigates how interaction design can support information literacy in the context of news online media by equipping designers - understood as intermediaries in the information flow - with tools to critically evaluate and deliberately shape UX interventions against disinformation. Drawing from an ecological metaphor, affordances, a synthesis of existing anti-disinformation strategies, cognitive theory and technocognition, the research-creation process unfolds in two linked contributions: the Design 4 Truth canvas, which stages a pedagogical, value sensitive space for exploring UX interventions, and the Technocognition Matrix, which distills and repackages these situated interventions into a two-dimensional meta-framework organizing interventions by their demands on user autonomy and cognitive effort. Developed as a reflective design tool, the matrix supports design education and practice by helping designers surface value trade-offs, reason about mitigation strategies, and intentionally recalibrate the cognitive and autonomy burdens embedded in online news media interfaces. While exploratory in scope, the work lays a foundation for future empirical validation and positions designers as active contributors to healthier, more accountable digital information ecosystems.