In progress

Security and privacy notifications—such as login alerts, spam e-mail warnings, and cookie consent requests—play a critical role in shaping how users respond to digital risks. Yet most notifications overlook cognitive accessibility, limiting their effectiveness for people with intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDD). In this work, we investigate how adults with IDD perceive and respond to common security and privacy notifications across mobile and web applications. Through a user study involving six adults with IDD, we identified key factors that influenced their understanding and decision-making, including reliance on visual or symbolic cues, simplification of complex terms, interdependence with support persons, and familiarity with everyday functions. We further highlight interaction challenges, including misunderstandings of notification purpose and flow, misinterpretations of language and terminology, and misalignments of action-outcome expectations. Our results contribute design recommendations to advance usable privacy and security, supporting safer and more autonomous digital engagement for users with IDD.