The Des-Infox app

A free app for learning how to verify information. Designed by the MJC de France network, drawn by Alain Delluc, developed in six months by an offshore team in India, in English.

Des-Infox is the digital extension of a teaching method developed by the national MJC network to sharpen people's discernment in the face of the news. The app, free, anonymous and open from age 13, invites users to enter a piece of information and run it through five modules: fact checking, history of hoaxes, evaluation of evidence, language and discourse, pixel. It certifies no truth: it structures a line of questioning.

Five modules to dissect information

The journey opens with a free 240-character entry, followed by an emotional measurement. Then comes the sieve: fact checking rolls out the QQOCCP method (what, who, where, when, how, why) in eight steps; the history of hoaxes confronts the entry with documented disinformation campaigns, from the Nativity story to flat-earth theories; the evaluation of evidence ranks sources, from scientific consensus to rumour; language and discourse takes apart twelve forms of manipulative communication; pixel checks how an image has been used through reverse search. At any point an emotion wheel records the user's feelings, and the results page aggregates it all: credibility score, module completion rate, emotional journey.

Six months of offshore development

The technical build was entrusted to a development team in India, steered from France by 199A. A single working language: English. The specification was broken down into Gherkin tables, each design panel turned into a functional object, and the anonymous storage API documented as early as 5 September 2022. Discussions, test campaigns and back-and-forth with the platforms were all held in English, right through to the alpha and beta builds shipped on TestFlight.

Development timeline

A back office and sovereign data

The app comes with a single-account admin interface: renewable password, two-factor authentication, usage summary (connection volumes and times), export of raw data and results, input mask for push notifications. Usage data is stored anonymously on the operators' own servers, with minimal connection logging (user ID and IP address) for legal cover.

Client: MJC de France. Art direction and design: Alain Delluc (alaindelluc.com). Research, development and coordination: 199A Consulting, with an offshore team in India.