
Judith GoodUniversity of Amsterdam | UVA · Institute of Informatics
Judith Good
BA, MSc, PhD
About
147
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Introduction
I'm a Professor in the Institute of Informatics at the University of Amsterdam. I'm interested in technology for learning, including games and simulations, and game creation for learning. I have a particular interest in designing technology for autism, and have worked on large scale projects such as the TLRP/TEL funded ECHOEs project. I also have experience in the design of programming environments for novice programmers (e.g. the EPSRC funded Flip project).
Additional affiliations
November 2017 - present
January 1997 - December 1999
August 2001 - December 2004
Publications
Publications (147)
In an era where Artificial Intelligence (AI) permeates our lives, its impact on children raises critical considerations. This workshop aims to delve into the multifaceted realm of Human-Centered AI (HCAI) for children, exploring the transformative role of AI in fostering creative expression and inclusive learning environments. Our goal is to unite...
Singer et al. (2023) argue that the current lexical shift within autism research towards more neutral terminology hinders accurate scientific description of the wide range
of autistic experiences, particularly within clinical and medical contexts. We disagree with these claims. This letter is authored and co-signed by a diverse group of autistic re...
In 2011, the author published an article that looked at the state of the art in novice programming environments. At the time, there had been an increase in the number of programming environments that were freely available for use by novice programmers, particularly children and young people. What was interesting was that they offered a relatively s...
Autism affects how people perceive and make sense of the world around them. Autism is a spectrum condition which impacts people in different ways. Also referred to as Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD), it is characterized by challenges in the domains of social, cognitive and motor functioning, which differ in severity. Previous research suggests that...
There is evidence from second-language learning research that acting out vocabulary can improve learning and recall. Gesture-based language learning games have the potential to support this method of learning. A within-subjects design was used to explore student preferences for interaction styles in vocabulary games. Three types of game interaction...
Spontaneous gestures produced during mathematics learning have been widely studied, however, research on the role of gesture in computing education is limited. This paper presents an investigation into children's use of spontaneous gestures when learning programming using either a tangible user interface (TUI) or a graphical user interface (GUI). T...
There is considerable interest in using tangible user interfaces (TUIs) to support teaching children programming, but evidence for the benefits is mixed, and their deployment in school environments presents more challenges than graphical user interfaces (GUIs). This study investigates the effect of GUIs and TUIs on learning outcomes, attitudes towa...
Participatory Design (PD) is a design approach which aims to support users to contribute as partners throughout the entire design process of a product or service intended for their use. PD researchers are interested in employing and/or developing methods and techniques that maximise users’ contributions. By accommodating specific populations, PD pr...
Despite its inherent challenges, participatory design (PD) has unique benefits when designing technology for children, especially children with special needs. Researchers have developed a multitude of PD approaches to accommodate specific populations. However, a lack of understanding of the appropriateness of existing approaches across contexts pre...
Technologies play vital roles in the learning and participation of autistic people and yet have mostly been conceptualised according to a medical model of disability. In this stakeholder review, the comments of 240 participants from a two-year seminar series focusing on autism and technology were analysed to co-construct an understanding of how res...
Participatory Design (PD) provides unique benefits in designing technology with and for specific target audiences. However, it can also be an intensive and difficult process, with unexpected situations which can arise at any stage. In this Special Interest Group (SIG), we propose that PD researchers may exchange "war stories'' about their unexpecte...
This paper examines the educational efficacy of a learning environment in which children diagnosed with Autism Spectrum Conditions (ASC) engage in social interactions with an artificially intelligent (AI) virtual agent and where a human practitioner acts in support of the interactions. A multi-site intervention study in schools across the UK was co...
In primary education, concepts are commonly introduced through concrete instantiations, such as physical manipulatives and kinaesthetic activities, with an expectation that learners will gradually move towards working with abstract representations. There has been considerable research in subjects such as mathematics on how children can move from wo...
In 2011, the author published an article that looked at the state of the art in novice programming environments. At the time, there had been an increase in the number of programming environments that were freely available for use by novice programmers, particularly children and young people. What was interesting was that they offered a relatively s...
Purpose: this paper presents an overview of the main messages and key questions for further research arising from the seven-seminar series entitled, “Innovative Technologies for Autism: Critical Reflections on Digital Bubbles”, funded by the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) in the UK.
Design/methodology/approach: a synthesis of the mai...
Participatory Design (PD) has become a standard methodology in HCI, however, the evaluation of the outcomes of participa-tory processes is often exclusively driven by researcher defined measures of success. Through our work with autistic children, who have radically different life worlds from our own, it became evident that their criteria for the s...
Purpose – This short paper reports on the sixth seminar in a 7-seminar series entitled, “Innovative Technologies for Autism: Critical Reflections on Digital Bubbles”, funded by the UK Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC). The aim of this particular seminar was to reflect upon the implications from neurodiverse communities for the development...
Purpose: Interdisciplinary perspectives and collaboration in technology research are regarded as vital for producing effective and usable solutions that meet real needs. The purpose of this paper is to draw upon the fifth seminar in an Economic and Social Research Council funded series in the UK on “Innovative Technologies for Autism”. This seminar...
Purpose: This short paper reports on the fourth seminar in a seven-seminar series entitled, “Innovative Technologies for Autism: Critical Reflections on Digital Bubbles”, funded by the UK Economic and Social Research Council. The purpose of this paper is to consider in more depth the technologies being developed and used in the autism field, and to...
Given the current focus on teaching computational concepts to all from an early age, combined with the growing trend to empower end users to become producers of technology rather than mere consumers, we consider the issue of “computational notation”. Specifically, where the goal is to help individuals develop their understanding of computation and/...
In autism and technology research, technologies are often developed by researchers targeting specific social and communication difficulties experienced by individuals with autism. In some technology-based projects, children and adults with autism as well as parents, carers, teachers, and other professionals, are involved as users, informers, and (m...
Our app, ASCMEI.T. encourages people on the autistic spectrum; their parents, carers, teachers and connected professionals, to suggest digital and technical solutions to help people with autism. The app allows people to record and upload videos, demonstrating ideas that could help people with autism in daily life. These videos were collected on a p...
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to reflect upon on the opportunities and challenges of engaging with a wide variety of stakeholders during the design, development and evaluation of innovative technologies for people with autism. Autism is defined in part by difficulties in social communication and interaction, and is therefore particularly per...
Technologies designed for people with autism are often focused on their particular functional limitations. We argue that this ignores a rich design space in which technologies could play more meaningful and multi-faceted roles in the complex life-worlds of people with autism. This one-day workshop will explore how to go beyond technologies that nar...
In autism and technology research, technologies are often developed by researchers targeting specific social and communication difficulties experienced by individuals with autism. In some technology-based projects, children and adults with autism as well as parents, carers, teachers, and other professionals, are involved as users, informers, and (m...
Purpose
– The purpose of this paper is to raise important questions from the different perspectives on autism research that arose from a seminar on autism and technology, held as part of an ESRC-funded series on innovative technologies for autism.
Design/methodology/approach
– The paper focuses on the roles of technology in understanding questions...
Investigations into playing against computer and human controlled opponents have shown higher levels of arousal against human opponents. Most experiments however measure this by using post play surveys. In contrast, the study reported in this paper used physiological measurements to allow for different events during competitive play to be analysed....
Given the current drive to teach computational concepts to all from an early age, we consider whether traditional programming languages are truly necessary, or whether natural language might be a suitable medium for program generation and comprehension, given its familiarity and ubiquity. We conducted an empirical study on the use of natural langua...
The current drive in many countries to teach computing, particularly programming, to all from an early age, has potential to empower and support children in creative and problem-solving tasks. However, there are a number of challenges in ensuring that computing curricula, tools and environments embody appropriate progression and engender motivation...
Creating narrative-based computer games is a complex and challenging task. Narrative Threads is a suite of software tools designed to aid young people (aged 11-15) in creating their own narrative-based games as a writing development activity. A participatory design process highlighted the areas where additional support was required, and informed th...
Purpose: there is increasing interest from researchers, teachers and other professionals, individuals with autism, and families about the potential for innovative technologies to transform learning experiences and facilitate friendships and social networks. Media accounts have highlighted both the apparently miraculous impacts of technology on supp...
Teaching basic computational concepts and skills to school children is currently a curricular focus in many countries. Running parallel to this trend are advances in programming environments and teaching methods which aim to make computer science more accessible, and more motivating. In this paper, we describe the design and evaluation of Flip, a p...
Data from the ECHOES virtual environment (VE) suggests that young children with autism spectrum conditions (ASC) may be motivated to initiate repeatedly and positively about novelty and expectation-violations (i.e. discrepancies) in a VE. This is of interest because initiating communication is developmentally important but difficult to encourage -...
Background:
The rigidity of thought and desire for routine which characterise ASDs might yield predictions that novel and expectation-violating aspects (discrepancies) within a virtual environment (VE) might be upsetting. An evaluation of ECHOES, a touchscreen-based, game-like VE to support social communication, provided an opportunity to investi...
Many children face significant challenges communicating, expressing themselves, and sharing their creative thoughts and ideas with others. Interactive technologies are playing an increasing role in addressing these challenges. This workshop will be an opportunity to discuss design, implementation, and evaluation methods, the needs of specific commu...
The field of Participatory Design (PD) has greatly diversified and we see a broad spectrum of approaches and methodologies emerging. However, to foster its role in designing future interactive technologies, a discussion about accountability and rigour across this spectrum is needed. Rejecting the traditional, positivistic framework, we take inspira...
This paper describes an exploratory study of system-side errors (i.e. expectation- or rule-violations) in a virtual environment (VE), and the subsequent reactions of young children with autism spectrum conditions (ASC). Analysis of existing video from 8 participants interacting with the ECHOES VE showed that they frequently detected and reacted to...
This paper explores the phenomenon of young children with autism spectrum conditions (ASC; aged 5-8 years) detecting discrepancies (i.e. novel or rule-violating occurrences) in a virtual environment (VE), and their subsequent reactions. Analysis of existent video data of 8 children with ASC interacting with the ECHOES VE showed that they detected a...
Interaction design methodologies have become increasingly popular in the design and development of technologies for children with special needs. However, designing within this area remains fraught with difficulties. This workshop aims to explore the issues that occur when working with children with special needs and seeks to establish a set of guid...
We describe the development of a tool to support the contributions of children with Autism Spectrum Conditions (ASC) in a design critique activity. The work is part of the ECHOES project in which we included children with ASC in a participatory design process to create a technologically enhanced learning environment. We start by discussing the gene...
This paper introduces Narrative Threads, a suite of tools designed to support 11-15 year olds in creating their own narrative-based computer games. Authoring interactive stories in game form has strong educational potential, but although there are tools which make game creation possible for young people, they have provided little to no interface su...
In this paper we discuss participatory approaches to designing interactive technologies for children with disabilities. While participatory design (PD) has been increasingly influential in the field of Human-Computer Interaction as a whole, applying its methods and theories to children with disabilities raises challenges specific to this target gro...
In this paper we describe the development of a tool to support the contributions of children with Autism Spectrum Conditions (ASC) in a design critique activity. The work is part of the ECHOES project in which we have included children with ASC in a participatory design process to create a technologically enhanced learning environment. We first dis...
Background: Children with ASD are known to have problems with social communication skills. Virtual environments (VEs) and virtual characters (VCs) have been identified as a promising support tool: they can be highly structured and predictable, and potentially less threatening than direct interaction with a human partner. Little is yet known about w...
Involving children in the design process of interactive technology can greatly enhance its likelihood of successful adoption. However, children's input and ideas require careful interpretation to reach viable designs and technical specifications, which poses a significant challenge to an adult design research team. In this paper we discuss our appr...
We present an interdisciplinary methodology for designing interactive technology for young children with Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD). In line with many other researchers in the field, we believe that the key to developing technology in this context is to embrace perspectives from diverse disciplines to arrive at a methodology that delivers sati...
Nonverbal communication is an essential part of face-to-face social interaction, conveying information about emotion and interpersonal relationships. The rigorous sensing capabilities of pervasive technologies and the subtle nature of ambient technologies make them ideal to support the production of nonverbal communication in social interactions. I...
Heuristic evaluation promises to be a low-cost usability evaluation method, but is fraught with problems of subjective interpretation, and a proliferation of competing and contradictory heuristic lists. This is particularly true in the field of games research where no rigorous comparative validation has yet been published. In order to validate the...
This article presents and discusses co-creation techniques for involving children in the design of a technologically enhanced learning environment. The ECHOES project, which involves both typically developing children and children with autism spectrum conditions, aims to create an environment that scaffolds the development of children's social skil...
We present an interdisciplinary methodology for designing interactive multi-modal technology for young children with autism spectrum disorders (ASDs). In line with many other researchers in the field, we believe that the key to developing technology in this context is to embrace perspectives from diverse disciplines to arrive at a methodology that...
In recent years, there has been an increase in the number of programming environments which are freely avail- able for use by novice programmers, particularly children and young people. What is interesting about these environments is the level of sophistication that they offer in terms of their development and support features, but also the motivat...
Computer science and engineering undergraduates must develop problem-solving skills, which are particularly important when solving programming problems which use simple algorithms. Ideally these skills are developed in the early stages of learning programming, in particular during the first weeks or months of a student's first course. For complete...
The philosophical discipline of phenomenology provides the designer with a framework for studying user experience by affording an intrinsically contextual view of the way we interact with things around us. In this paper we argue that phenomenology also plays a critical role in participatory design when it is undertaken as an interpretive and genera...
A study was carried out which examined the extent to which young people aged 11-12, with no prior instruction in programming, are able to write computational rules which govern play in a 3D computer role-playing game. Expressing these rules required the use of common computational structures such as conditionals, sets and loops. We analysed the rul...
Constructive emotional experiences are strongly related to effective learning. Yet, it is challenging for teachers, researchers and students alike to understand the emotions experienced in the classroom setting. Advances in wireless and sensor technologies open up possibilities for better supporting emotions. However, little work has explored how a...
This paper illustrates our preliminary studies of new interactive tools that support the generation of sequential art for entertainment, learning and scientific discourse. In the first of two examples, primary school students document a practical science session through the creation of a photostory. In the second, participants in a study on the bio...
This paper describes how researchers from diverse research disciplines are working together with design teams of children, carers and practitioners to create an exploratory multimodal environment for children. This learning environment, entitled ECHOES II, aims to be both an educational intervention and an environment through which we research chil...
As evidenced by this book, the use of virtual worlds for teaching and learning is attracting increasing attention. Many universities
have a virtual presence in environments such as Second LifeTM (SL), but there is little guidance to educators on how to best make use of the affordances of virtual worlds. In this chapter,
we use our own practical exp...
This paper explores the potential for simplified programming languages to support the development of computational thinking skills in non-programmers. We suggest that novice programming languages might offer a starting point for non-programmers to engage with a substantial subset of computational thinking concepts, and assess a number of languages...
Technology is undoubtedly enabling scientists to do research in interesting new ways. However, Science 2.0 is about more than improved workflows, efficiency and sharing within communities, it also offers opportunities to greatly broaden participation beyond existing scientific communities and bridge between communities. These developments bring sig...