No full-text available
To read the full-text of this research,
you can request a copy directly from the authors.
Considering context, content, management, and engagement in design activities with children
Abstract
In this paper we describe three different design activities carried out for the design of a music device for children. The studies involved researchers from different disciplines as well as children from different schools. We reflected on what happened during the design activities and we looked at the outputs produced by the children in order to understand the feasibility of the activities from two perspectives: whether they contributed to the design of the product and whether they suitably involved children in the process. In relation to the design of the product, information gathered during the activities was associated either to the context or to the content of the design. In relation to the design method, the study enabled us to identify aspects of both children's' engagement and researchers' management that affected the success of the activities. We used these factors to create what we consider a useful framework for meaningful design activities.
... Only very few articles have touched upon the role of music in the design process with children. Furthermore, the studies describe the design process with children, the music being related to the product being designed, not to the design process itself (see [3], [32] [33]). In this study, instead, music plays an important role during the design process. ...
... In the research project, numerous innovative workshop sessions have been organized with children (see e.g. [32]), music being in different roles in the workshops. In this paper we describe three different workshops, through which we outline what kind of meanings music may have in the design process with children. ...
... There are only few music related articles concentrating on describing design process with children in this area. Bar-Ilan and Belous [3], Mazzone and colleagues [32] and McKnight and Read [33] enlarge this topic from three different viewpoints. ...
Music and other art based methods should play a significant role in the HCI field when designing with children, taking the developmental stage of the children into consideration. Music has been neglected in the design process in HCI research, while there is a lot of meaningful research in social and educational studies. HCI research has concentrated more on technological products and technological needs of special education, bringing up music as an important part of media too. In this paper we emphasize the versatile role of music during the design process with preschool children. We describe three different workshops identifying three different roles for music: a contextual role, music as a trigger and music as content. The roles demonstrate numerous possibilities for using music in design workshops and show the usefulness of music in collaborative design with children. HCI research should utilize music in more varied forms during design.
... [27] Teachers have also been successfully included in design sessions carried out with children. Teachers have, for example, been invited for commenting on design activities and language used to ensure that they are appropriate, interesting, and understandable for children [16,20,25,27]. Teachers may be involved also in many practical arrangements, e.g. ...
... Teachers may be involved also in many practical arrangements, e.g. forming groups of pupils for design activities, assuring order, helping pupils become engaged in the tasks, and acting as translators of children's ideas as well as liaisons between children and designers [16,17,19,23]. They can also be invited to help in research data collection in the classroom [5] or to evaluate the project afterwards [17]. ...
... Teachers should also be well equipped to ensure that children are treated with respect and dignity, to help children to express and construct their views, and to explain things in an understandable manner to children (cf. [16,20,25,27]). All this forms a valuable basis for cooperation with schools. Designers entering the school context should try to take advantage of the available expertise there. ...
Relatively little attention has been paid to discussing what it means when children's participation in technology design is genuine, even though the importance of their participation is emphasized in the literature. School as a context presents multiple challenges but also numerous benefits for working with children. We examine five projects carried out with children in the school context, and critically consider in which respects this context supports genuine participation of children, in which respects it poses challenges for it, and what this implies for technology design with children. We maintain that researchers need to critically examine the goals set for children's participation: whether they are learning- or material outcome-oriented. This significantly affects the choice of the context for projects.
... However, participatory design methods have not been so prominent (see, e.g., an overview of recent work in McPherson, Morreale, & Harrison, 2019). In a study by Mazzone, Iivari, Tikkanen, Read, and Beale (2010), three different design activities were carried out for the design of a musical device for children. The authors explored outcomes of the employed methods to understand the activities from two perspectives: whether the methods contributed to the design of a mobile music application and whether they suitably involved children in the process. ...
... The study described in this paper took place at the Swedish Museum of Performing Arts in Stockholm. We followed the five guidelines suggested by Mazzone et al. (2010): (a) involve teachers in the study preparation, (b) engage children using props, (c) allow multimodal and expressive communication, (d) record the progress and end results, and (e) involve experts from other disciplines in the analysis. ...
... Moreover, elements of play with the creation of sounds, in which the children easily started to imagine and produce different types of sounds with various tools (including their voice) or probes, potentially could have been beneficial in this case (cf. Mazzone et al., 2010). ...
A class of master of science students and a group of preschool children codesigned new digital musical instruments based on workshop interviews involving vocal sketching, a method for imitating and portraying sounds. The aim of the study was to explore how the students and children would approach vocal sketching as one of several design methods. The children described musical instruments to the students using vocal sketching and other modalities (verbal, drawing, gestures). The resulting instruments built by the students were showcased at the Swedish Museum of Performing Arts in Stockholm. Although all the children tried vocal sketching during preparatory tasks, few employed the method during the workshop. However, the instruments seemed to meet the children’s expectations. Consequently, even though the vocal sketching method alone provided few design directives in the given context, we suggest that vocal sketching, under favorable circumstances, can be an engaging component that complements other modalities in codesign involving children.
... The teachers' approval and engagement in many practical arrangements (e.g. group formation and maintenance of order) are required (Druin 2002;Read et al. 2002). Teachers may be engaged in arranging the settings; determining the learning goals; ensuring that the design activities and language are appropriate, interesting and understandable for the children involved; and even in data collection in the classroom as well as the evaluation of the project and the product afterwards (Druin 2002;Garzotto 2008;Mazzone et al. 2010;Mazzone, Read, and Beale 2008;Pardo, Howard, and Vetere 2008;Read and MacFarlane 2006;Rode et al. 2003;Scaife and Rogers 1999). Traditional power structures between children and teachers, or any adults, may also affect the design process in an undesired way. ...
... In literature, other kinds of adult professionals have been brought in as participants in the design process as well, having useful expertise for the design team but possibly influencing children's participation. These professionals include educational researchers, artists, psychologists and health–care professionals (Mazzone et al. 2010;Moraveji et al. 2007;Scaife et al. 1997;Scaife and Rogers 1999) and ICT researchers or practitioners themselves. When working with children with special needs, adult proxies or helpers may also be important participants in the design process (DeLeo and Leroy 2008;Guha, Druin, and Fails 2008;Holone and Herstad 2013). ...
... Child groups may be intentionally formed for the participants to work symbiotically together (Guha et al. 2004). Children may also end up collaborating during design sessions without a specific request from the adults (Iivari et al. 2014;Kuure et al. 2010;Mazzone et al. 2010). Children may initiate collaboration between groups, paying attention also to inter-group collaboration (Garzotto 2008). ...
Pdf of the paper in: https://mkinnula.files.wordpress.com/2016/05/molin-juustila-et-al-2015.pdf
Children's participation in information and communication technology (ICT) design is an established interdisciplinary research field. Methods for children's participation have been developed, but a closer link between theory and design has been called for, as well as an examination of various participants influencing children's participation in ICT design. This paper addresses these gaps by introducing the research strategy of nexus analysis as a promising theoretical framework. Especially the concepts of ‘interaction order’ and ‘historical body’ are utilised in the analysis of six empirical studies on ICT design with children. The analysis shows that through the participating children there were also ‘others’ involved, multiple voices to be heard, often invisible but informing design. Some of these ‘others’ have already been acknowledged in literature but the issue has not been examined in depth and common vocabulary for this is lacking. Some practical implications will be offered by illustrating how to consider these concepts in different phases of ICT design: when establishing relationships with children, involving children as participant designers and analysing the results of these participative processes.
... Teachers can be invited as informants or evaluators into the design process: they can offer information for the basis of defining suitable learning goals for a design solution, and they can evaluate achievement of those later on [23][29] [32]. Teachers can also take care of practical arrangements [25] and help children to focus on design tasks [19][20] [22]. They can collect data [4] and help children and designers to understand each other [19][20] [22]. ...
... Teachers can also take care of practical arrangements [25] and help children to focus on design tasks [19][20] [22]. They can collect data [4] and help children and designers to understand each other [19][20] [22]. They can comment on the planned activities and used language [19] [23][26] [28] and participate in evaluating project results [20]. ...
... They can collect data [4] and help children and designers to understand each other [19][20] [22]. They can comment on the planned activities and used language [19] [23][26] [28] and participate in evaluating project results [20]. ...
We explore ways by which teachers act as intermediaries in information technology (IT) design with children through analyzing three of our design projects conducted with schoolchildren and their teachers. In our projects the teachers acted as informants and evaluators, but not as IT design partners, albeit they had a lot of decision-making power as steering-group members of the projects. The teachers offered valuable understanding of children through their general knowledge about child development and their knowledge of their class. Teachers also acted as valuable facilitators in the design process, enhancing children’s participation in the design process. They also acted as advocates of children and their learning. They considered children’s learning goals and fit with the curriculum and developed their own skills and knowledge to serve children’s learning. Occasionally, they also acted as advocates of children’s interests more generally; however, not in the sense of critical tradition.
... Design frameworks and toolkits should be conceived so that children can become and stay engaged in the design, e.g., [41]. Engagement is an important benefit to consider in design by children [42]. It is also an activating factor for learning. ...
... Fun-oriented rather than learning-oriented design Playfulness and games help motivate and guide children in design [83]. In fact, many researchers and practitioners agree that design with or for children should be playful and fun to enable children to become and stay engaged with the activity [41,42]. Moreover, fun can have a significant and positive effect on children's perceived learning of programming [84]. ...
In recent years, research in child-computer interaction shifted the focus from design with children for giving them a voice in the design process, to design by children so as to bring child participants different benefits, such as engagement and learning. Design workshops, encompassing different stages, are however challenging in terms of engagement and learning, e.g., they take a prolonged commitment and concentration capabilities. They are potentially more challenging when held at a distance, as it was the case in recent years due to the COVID-19 pandemic. This paper explores at-a-distance smart-thing design with children, and how it can engage different children and support their learning in programming.
The paper reports on a series of design workshops with 20 children, aged from 8 to 16 years old, all held at a distance. They were uniformly framed with the DigiSNaP design framework and toolkit. The first workshop enabled children to explore what smart things are, start ideating their own and scaffold their programming. The other workshops enabled children to evolve their own smart-thing ideas and programs. Data were gathered in relation to children’s engagement and learning, from different sources. Results are promising for future editions of smart-thing design at a distance or in hybrid modality. They are discussed in the conclusions of the paper, along with guidelines and difficulties faced with design by children at a distance.
... Research in this area has therefore been extensive. Druin et al., [3] Mazzone et al., [7] Obrist et al., [9] and Vaajakallio et al. [14] have studied the strategic involvement of the child in the design process and influenced the inclusion of co-design for this work. Other influencing factors include previous involvement by the primary author with the commercial application of usercentred methods. ...
... Mazzone et al. [7] alongside others [11] have found that fun is an important issue when dealing with children. This extends to the methods used for designing so that they can be as engaging as possible. ...
This paper describes a proposed new method for helping to understand the emotional requirements of children during the conceptual phase of designing an interface. The approach may be particularly useful where the feelings of the child are critical, but are difficult to investigate; for example when the issues are sensitive and may provoke emotional responses. Here we explore an approach that draws on the social agency that characters can provide to help the young user articulate their opinion. Children were asked to create fictitious cartoon 'personalities' that have desired attributes, personal qualities and behaviors that are relevant to a given scenario. Subsequently this influenced the conceptualization of a product under development for the context defined. The devices were being developed for final major projects across both the University of Brighton and the University of Sussex Product Design departments. Character design was found to be an engaging activity for the children, with a tangible outcome that can facilitate communication between the designer and pupil. It also provides a relatively sensitive method for getting information about the youngster's feelings through the dialogue that took place. This forms part of a larger study for a PhD thesis based on designing for children's emotional needs.
... By varying methods, activities and materials (see Picture 1), the children were given the opportunity to express themselves in different ways. In the present context, the variety of materials was very useful as it especially offered the younger children a medium to express themselves in a non-verbal way (Mazzone et al. 2010). ...
... To avoid intimidating or disturbing the children in their creative flow, observations were noted immediately after the design workshop (Druin 1999) and the use of the Dictaphone as a tool for the interviewer to remember what was said was explained and the children were reassured that this was the only purpose. When designing with children it can be difficult to decode the details in their ideas and it is therefore especially important to encourage the children to explain their ideas during the process as well as presenting them when their product is finished (Mazzone et al. 2010). The children were therefore encouraged to use their drawings and prototypes while presenting their ideas, which helped them describing their designs visually and through physical objects. ...
Involving children in the design process in the context of exhibition settings is a relatively new and unexplored field. We address the challenges of constructing and evaluating a design framework involving children when developing an interactive exhibition. In this, we draw on informant design, participatory design, cooperative inquiry, and child development research in order to adapt the design framework to children. The proposed framework was applied and evaluated on the case of the PULSE exhibition project at the Experimentarium Science Center. Altogether, six children aged six to eleven participated in three workshops based on the design framework. The analysis and discussion of the findings resulted in three design proposals for the exhibition. Furthermore, the study showed that the framework had the potential to engage children in participatory design within an exhibition context. The evaluation of this study indicates possibilities and challenges for future research and for designers to be aware of when designing with children for interactive exhibition environments.
... Participatory design has urged us to consider 'users' as codesigners of their technology and of the practices that may be reified in that technology. Within the area of Child Computer Interaction (CCI) children have participated in the design of technology for over two decades using a variety of established methods [3] [12]. These methods typically involve children in dyads or groups, rather than individually. ...
... Also, the majority of CCI authors tends to focus primarily on remediating asymmetrical power relationships between adults and children, e.g. [4][7] [12]. Therefore, the CCI community would benefit from an in-depth exploration and categorization of challenging group dynamics when co-designing technology with children. ...
This paper presents a structured way to evaluate challenging group or ‘co-design dynamics’ in participatory design processes with children. In the form of a critical reflection on a project in which 103 children were involved as design partners, we describe the most prevalent co-design dynamics. For example, some groups rush too quickly towards consensus to safeguard group cohesiveness instead of examining other choice alternatives (i.e., groupthink). Besides ‘groupthink’ we describe five more challenging co-design dynamics: ‘laughing out loud’, ‘free riding’, ‘unequal power’, ‘apart together’ and ‘destructive conflict’. We argue that balancing these dynamics has a positive impact on the dialectic process of developing values and ideas in participatory design, as well as on children’s motivation. Therefore, the CCI community could benefit from our in-depth exploration and categorization of challenging group dynamics when co-designing technology with children.
... End Elicitation application will record the value of children's satisfaction with the learning styles that they have chosen. Assessment of learning styles is done by participants through satisfaction value using smiley faces (emoticons) (Mazzone and Iivari, 2010). Figure 2 shows a display of the material assessment satisfaction activities that have been presented. ...
... The satisfaction has means, the children perceive the material presented and the content meets the element of usability (MacFarlane et al., 2005). The assessment uses a scale value of 1-5 using smiles face (Mazzone and Iivari 2010). Finish viewing the material, the child will be asked to answer a set of questions to assess the material presented. ...
Learning styles is one aspect of pedagogy that needs to be considered in the learning process. Understanding of material will be achieved if it is by the learning styles. Children do not have experience in the learning process, so identification of children learning styles is needed. The cognitive, psycho-motor and emotional abilities of children in each varying age range become a factor that determines learning styles. Learning styles tend to be recommended to children in the form of visual, audio, read/write and kinesthetic. Identification can be made towards learning styles that are by the child's preferences. The use of digital applications will be more accurate when compared to questionnaires in identifying learning styles. The presentation of interactive material and immersive in each learning styles can help identify children's learning styles. The assessment of material understanding was clarified in elicitation apps. The material evaluation was presented in the form of a set of questions related to the material presented. Interactions in the evaluation activities in the apps were presented according to the child's learning styles. Output produced by the application can be used by learning application developers, teachers, or parents in identifying children's learning styles.
... Read et al [12] critically refer to this trend as the 'crowdsourcing of ideas'. Instead of being merely tokenistic, decorative or even manipulative, genuine forms of children's participation should generate knowledge of the children, enable their voices to be heard, impact decision-making and empower children [5,13,14,15]. ...
... democratizing the workplace). Central is the idea that the objective of design is not only technological products, but also for participants to develop new insights, design abilities, and a critical stance towards technology through their engagement in design work) [13]. To pursue more genuine forms of participation that fit the democratising values of this PD tradition, Schepers, Dreessen & Zaman [16] have argued for extending the range of children's roles that has been identified so far -including Druin's [10] seminal classification -with an additional role, being 'the child as process designer'. ...
Although seemingly evident, 'fun' in Participatory Design (PD) processes involving children generally remains implicit. In this paper, we explore fun as a user gain since the benefits that children gain from PD are relatively unexplored. We reflect on 'Making Things!', a case study involving children in the design of FabLab workshops for the future. Our findings show that the child-participants gain from the process through fun in overcoming challenges, working towards finalised objects, experimenting, and interacting with others. Based on our findings, we posit that fun can be a direct gain of children participating in PD, but also relates to additional user gains (e.g. developing self-esteem). Furthermore, we hypothesise that opening up the assessment of children's user gains would fit the notion of the child as process designer. These findings extend the debate on benefits children can gain through PD and highlight the importance of fun as a user gain.
... Most of the work in this field has focused on adult users but following early work by (Druin, 1999a;Druin, 1999b;Kafai, 1999;Scaife, 1997) more and more research studies employ participatory methods in work with children -both to give the young people a say but also, and possibly more importantly, to allow the research team to better understand these populations (Mazzone, Iivari, Tikkanen, Read and Beale, 2010). Examples include (Druin, 1997;Garzotto, 2008;Guha et al., 2004;Read, 2009). ...
This paper describes the development and exploration of a tool designed to assist in investigating 'cool' as it applies to the design of interactive products for teenagers. The method involved the derivation of theoretical understandings of cool from literature that resulted in identification of seven core categories for cool, which were mapped to a hierarchy. The hierarchy includes having of cool things, the doing of cool activities and the being of cool. This paper focuses on a tool, the Cool Wall, developed to explore one specific facet of the hierarchy; exploring shared understanding of having cool things. The paper describes the development and construction of the tool, using a heavily participatory approach, and the results and analysis of three studies. The first study was carried out over 2 days in a school in the UK. The results of the study both provide clear insights into cool things and enable a refined understanding of cool in this context. Two additional studies are then used to identify potential shortcomings in the Cool Wall methodology. In the second study participants were able to populate a paper cool wall with anything they chose, this revealed two potential new categories of images and that the current set of images covered the majority of key themes. In the third study teenagers interpretations of the meaning of the images included in the Cool Wall were explored, this showed that the majority of meanings were as expected and a small number of unexpected interpretations provided some valuable insights.
... Today there is a trend among researchers to lean toward this collaborative design approach (Hornof, 2009) based on first-hand requests from potential users, ensuring the best possible adaptation of technology to its users (Hemmert et al., 2010). The trend is also observable in child education, with an increasing number of creative techniques that seek to extract information directly from the child, with the participation also of parents or teachers (Mazzone et al., 2010). ...
This chapter describes a collection of experiences and recommendations related with the design and evaluation of interactive applications integrating Embodied Conversational Agents (ECA) technology in real environments of use with children in Special Education. Benefits and challenges of using ECAs in this context are presented. These benefits and challenges have guided the creation of Special Education reinforcement applications incorporating ECAs, which have been used for extended periods of time at Infanta Elena Special Education School in Madrid. Co-design principles were applied in the development of two of the applications discussed here, with the participation of the school’s teaching staff and children with severe motor and mental disabilities (mainly with cerebral palsy). From the design experience a set of recommendations and observations were extracted, which the authors hope may serve as guidance for the scientific and educational communities when undertaking further research. For example, in an application to reinforce the learning of emotions it believe it beneficial to include ECAs that display a number of exaggerated facial expressions together with a combination of auditory and gestural reinforcements. The ECA should show its eyes and mouth clearly, in order to help the children focus their attention. These and other ECA strategies have been analysed to provide reinforcement in learning and also to attract the children’s attention when interacting with the application.
... Since the following part of the paper will focus on the evolvement of the process by which these ideas were actually integrated into the product prototype, we summarise the information gathered from all the activities according to the categories that emerged for the design contributions (context and content) in Table 1. Please refer to ( Mazzone et al. 2010) for a complete view that includes also the results that emerged from the design activities' categories (management and engagement). ...
In this paper, we describe three studies for the design of a hand-held music device for children. The studies involved researchers from different disciplines and children from different schools. We reflected on what happened during the design activities. And we looked at the outputs produced by the children in order to understand the feasibility of the activities that were included in the design sessions from two perspectives: whether they contributed to the design of the product termed their capability and whether they suitably involved children in the process called their suitability. We then report on how children's ideas were selected and integrated into the product design through iterative cycles of testing and refinements. This description of the process prompted the discussion on the involvement of children and their ideas throughout the whole process, its benefit and difficulties that could be applicable to a wide variety of design contexts with children.
... Nevertheless the concept 'group dynamics' has generally been poorly defined within the field of CCI. When defined, the majority of CCI-research has focused on remediating asymmetrical power relationships between adults and children (e.g., [9][14] [26]). However, dynamics among children themselves are neglected. ...
In this paper we explore whether Social Interdependence Theory (SIT) is a useful theoretical framework to anticipate on challenging intragroup dynamics in co-design with children. According to SIT, there are five variables that mediate the effectiveness of cooperation: positive interdependence, individual accountability, promotive interaction patterns, social skills and group processing. First, we theoretically ground six challenging group dynamics encountered in a previous study. Next, we introduce SIT and we describe how we applied each of the five mediating variables in a new case study in which 49 children aged 9 to 10 were involved in a series of co-design sessions. Afterwards, we present our findings and reflect upon the SIT inspired co-design procedure. Finally we touch upon topics for further research and we make a call for more research on SIT in the Child Computer Interaction (CCI) community.
... Mazzone et al. [9] alongside others [10] have found that fun is an important issue when dealing with children. This extends to the methods used for designing so that they can be as engaging as possible. ...
Design methods that include the end user of a product in the design process can be useful for undergraduate Product Design projects. These approaches allow a novice designer to gain the perspective of others and to work with them first hand on a problem. When designing for children, this can add valuable insight for design decisions and also provide inspiration around the young person's world. However there can be difficulties with time constraints and also the ethics of including children in projects that may be stressful. Here we explore a particular approach to Co-design, with students working alongside children to understand more about their emotional needs and aspirations during the creation of character designs for product design applications. The children were asked to create fictitious cartoon characters that have desired attributes, personal qualities and behaviours that relate to a given scenario. Subsequently this influenced the conceptualization of a product under development for the scenario. The devices being conceptualized were for final major projects and included: a) a blood glucose monitor for young diabetics b) a product to encourage children to eat healthily and grow their own c) a toy to encourage outdoor play. Character design was found to be an enjoyable activity for all, with a tangible outcome that facilitated communication between the student and pupil. It also provides a relatively sensitive method for getting information about the youngster's feelings and aspirations within the context defined.
... The FACIT Framework from Walsh et al. [38] is inherently practical considering aspects like design goal and the children's ability as a way to position different methods and techniques. The Early Design Framework from Sluis-Thiescheffer et al. [39] studied outcomes as a way to think about design, and the Content, Context and Engagement Framework from Mazzone et al. [40] used broad dimensions to position a range of methods, some specific to children, others more universal. Each of these frameworks takes a different approach towards positioning design methods. ...
We present Tick Box Design, a rapid co-design method for research and industry that allows users to gather many design ideas from large numbers of participants in a limited time whilst adhering to ethical principles around users understanding their contributions. The method is based on a design workshop model and can be packaged for delivery by remote teams making it well suited for distributed PD work. In this paper we describe an instance of the method in which 198 teenagers in one country, remotely contributed design ideas for a team in another country, across four rapid 60-minute workshops. In a systematic evaluation of the workshop, we take the needs of both sides into account, the teen participants, and the design team. We explore the participants’ ability to contribute ideas and the usefulness of these ideas to the design team. We show that the teenagers successfully participated in the activities and that the process delivered ideas that were useful to the design team. We discuss our evaluation in the context of ethical and useful participation of minors in HCI research and conclude that Tick Box Design is an efficient method that can be packaged for remote use and delivers value for designers and participants.
... , storyboardingSchaper, Santos, and Pares (2018), design critiqueFrauenberger, Good, Alcorn, and Pain (2013), trackRead, Fitton, and Hortton (2014), drawing-tellingDesjardins and Wakkary (2011), design exposès Frauenberger, Makhaeva, andSpiel (2016), obstructed theaterMazzone, Iivari, Tikkanen, Read, and Beale (2010), persona Jones, Hall, and Hilton (2012), scenario-based design Vacca (2019), cool wall Bowen, Sustar, Wolstenholme, and Dearden (2013), blue sky Bowen et al. (2013), x-factor Bowen et al. (2013), dragons den Bowen et al. (2013), group sorter Soute, Lagerström, and Markopoulos (2013), context mapping Van Mechelen, Zaman, Laenen, and Abeele (2015), drama-based method Frauenberger, Makhaeva, and Spiel (recording or tracking user actions such as the target of a click, hover event, current mouse position, etc. and nearly any other on-screen activity Atterer, Leite, Pereira, and Lehman (2017), Fun Sorter Sim and Horton (2012), Again-again Table Sim and Horton (2012), Self-assessment Manikin Metatla et al. (2019), Attrakdiff Fleck et al. (2018), Intrinsic Motivation Inventories (IMI) Harms, Cosgrove, Gray, and Kelleher (2013), Kids Game Experience Questionnaire (KidsGEQ) Martin-Niedecken (2018), PA Measure-Revised (MPAM_R) Ma et al. (2018), Playful Experiences Questionnaire (PLEXQ) Ma et al. (2018) User testing Bateman, et al. ...
Child-Computer Interaction (CCI) is a steadily growing field that focuses on children as a prominent and emergent user group. For more than twenty years, the Interaction Design for Children (IDC) community has developed, extended, and advanced research and design methods for children’s involvement in designing and evaluating interactive technologies. However, as the CCI field evolves, the need arises for an integrated understanding of interaction design methods currently applied. To that end, we analyzed 272 full papers across a selection of journals and conference venues from 2005 to 2020. Our review contributes to the literature on this topic by (1) examining a holistic child population, including developmentally diverse children and children from 0 to 18 years old, (2) illustrating the interplay of children’s and adults’ roles across different methods, and (3) identifying patterns of triangulation in the methods applied while taking recent ethical debates about children’s involvement in design into account. While we found that most studies were conducted in natural settings, we observed a preference for evaluating interactive artifacts at a single point in time. Method triangulation was applied in two-thirds of the papers, with a preference for qualitative methods. Researchers used triangulation predominantly with respect to mainstream methods that were not specifically developed for child participants, such as user observation combined with semi-structured interviews or activity logging. However, the CCI field employs a wide variety of creative design methods which engage children more actively in the design process by having them take on roles such as informant and design partner. In turn, we see that more passive children’s roles, e.g., user or tester, are more often linked to an expert mindset by the adult. Adults take on a wider spectrum of roles in the design process when addressing specific developmental groups, such as children with autism spectrum disorder. We conclude with a critical discussion about the constraints involved in conducting CCI research and discuss implications that can inform future methodological advances in the field and underlying challenges.
... Thus, the consequences of the design process which could contain different stages of effect on both the child participants themselves and resulting technology, based on children involvement level and their contributions during the design process. These contributions usually achieved via the result of engagement at PD stretched workshop of small design teams over a while developing design ideas [20] or through involving big numbers of children a short time workshop to gather ideas to guide designers [21]. ...
... Today there is a trend among researchers to lean toward this collaborative design approach (Hornof, 2009) based on first-hand requests from potential users, ensuring the best possible adaptation of technology to its users (Hemmert et al., 2010). The trend is also observable in child education, with an increasing number of creative techniques that seek to extract information directly from the child, with the participation also of parents or teachers (Mazzone et al., 2010). ...
This chapter describes a collection of experiences and recommendations related with the design and evaluation of interactive applications integrating Embodied Conversational Agents (ECA) technology in real environments of use with children in Special Education. Benefits and challenges of using ECAs in this context are presented. These benefits and challenges have guided the creation of Special Education reinforcement applications incorporating ECAs, which have been used for extended periods of time at Infanta Elena Special Education School in Madrid. Co-design principles were applied in the development of two of the applications discussed here, with the participation of the school’s teaching staff and children with severe motor and mental disabilities (mainly with cerebral palsy). From the design experience a set of recommendations and observations were extracted, which the authors hope may serve as guidance for the scientific and educational communities when undertaking further research. For example, in an application to reinforce the learning of emotions it believe it beneficial to include ECAs that display a number of exaggerated facial expressions together with a combination of auditory and gestural reinforcements. The ECA should show its eyes and mouth clearly, in order to help the children focus their attention. These and other ECA strategies have been analysed to provide reinforcement in learning and also to attract the children’s attention when interacting with the application.
... Previous research involving children in the design process has often reported challenges of keeping children 'on task' [35,49]. In a similar way, in both case studies the children initiated and pursued what appeared to be tangential actions or discussions to the main research topics. ...
The involvement of developmentally diverse children in design has been driven by pragmatic concerns and also an emancipatory aim to give children voice and agency over decisions. However, little attention has been given to how participation and power are performed in the early exploratory phase of design prior to overt decision points. Our research seeks to contribute to this gap with two separate case studies of design involvement, one with dyslexic children and the other with children with cerebral palsy. An analysis of children’s and researchers’ power dynamics during design sessions supports us to understand the contextual factors shaping how the different participants exercised power; the outcomes of this power and to reflect on how these moments shaped the design agenda. Our work identifies a number of challenges and raises new questions that may guide future reflexive participatory practice with developmentally diverse children.
... The significance of the historical body shaping any social action has been acknowledged to some extent in CCI research (Iivari, Kinnula, Molin-Juustila, & Kuure, 2017;Molin-Juustila et al., 2015;. Some CCI researchers have noted that children's homes, the people close to them and children's personal interests and activities are reflected in their contributions (Katterfeldt, Dittert, & Schelhowe, 2009;Mazzone, Iivari, Tikkanen, Read, & Beale, 2010), for example, when designing games (Vasudevan, Kafai, & Yang, 2015) even when they have been encouraged to try out something new (Katterfeldt, Dittert, & Schelhowe, 2015). It has also been noted that children's past experiences can be helpful in accomplishing design tasks (Berman, Deuermeyer, Nam, Chu, & Quek, 2018), but lack of skills and knowledge of technology (Vandevelde, Wyffels, Ciocci, Vanderborght, & Saldien, 2015) or experience in collaborative creation and negotiation (Smith, Iversen, & Hjorth, 2015) can hinder work (Vandevelde et al., 2015). ...
We articulate in this paper what participation at its best entails in the context of digital technology design with children, forming a theoretical framework for genuine participation of children in digital technology design and making. We integrate in the framework a set of conditions for the meaningful and effective participation of children and the nexus analytic concepts of historical body, interaction order and discourses in place, and complement that with the lenses of empowerment, values and value. In addition to these theoretical lenses, we rely on the insights gained during our empirical work with children for more than a decade. We contribute to research on Child Computer Interaction (CCI) by explaining what ‘participation at its best’ entails in practice and how it can be studied in research. Thus, CCI researchers and practitioners advocating participation, empowerment and inclusion of children can benefit from this framework when planning, analysing and evaluating their projects with children.
... It is not uncommon to encounter 'unequal power' (Franz, 2012) during collaborative design activities with children, such as some children coming to the co-design tasks with higher status than others (Van Mechelen, Gielen, vanden Abeele, Laenen, & Zaman, 2014). Within CCI, several authors report remediating asymmetrical power relationships between adults and children, e.g (Druin, 2002;Mazzone, Iivari, Tikkanen, Read, & Beale, 2010), including Walsh et al.'s work to create DisCo, a DPD tool to enact Cooperative Inquiry and break down power imbalances (Walsh et al., 2012). (See Table 6.) ...
Participatory Design (PD) – whose inclusive benefits are broadly recognised in design – can be very challenging, especially when involving children. The recent COVID-19 pandemic has given rise to further barriers to PD with such groups. One key barrier is the advent of social distancing and government-imposed social restrictions due to the additional risks posed for e.g. children and families vulnerable to COVID-19. This disrupts traditional in-person PD (which involves close socio-emotional and often physical collaboration between participants and researchers). However, alongside such barriers, we have identified opportunities for new and augmented approaches to PD across distributed geographies, backgrounds, ages and abilities. We examine Distributed Participatory Design (DPD) as a solution for overcoming these new barriers, during and after COVID-19. We offer new ways to think about DPD, and unpick some of its ambiguities. We do this through an examination of the results from an online Interaction Design and Children (IDC) 2020 workshop. The workshop included 24 researchers with experience in PD, in a range of forms, in the context of children. Initially designed to take place in-person and to include a design session with children in a school in London, the workshop was adjusted to an online format in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Despite the adverse circumstances, we discovered that the unexpected change of the workshop style from in-person to online was an opportunity and an impetus for us to address the new PD challenges of the global pandemic. In this article we contribute seven themes which were revealed during our IDC workshop, providing guidance on important areas for consideration when planning and conducting PD in the context of a global pandemic. With a focus on the term ’distributed’, we offer insights on how DPD can be applied and explored in these circumstances with child participants. We conclude with a number of lessons learned, highlighting the opportunities and challenges DPD offers to enable continued co-design during a global pandemic. In particular, DPD provides greater access for some populations to be involved in PD, but technical and social challenges must be addressed.
... On the other, the Scandinavian approach today still reflects its early ideology and values, i.e. communicating benefits of user-involvement and democratising the workplace. Corresponding to the latter, children are engaged in design processes for the sake of empowerment, taking on the form of large numbers of children collaborating in short, concentrated periods of time [12]. As this fits the values outlined in this article best, we position our work in relation to the democratising values of the Scandinavian tradition. ...
Although children's roles in Participatory Design (PD) processes have been more or less stable for the last two decades, the recent academic debates have urged us to rethink these traditional roles in order to aim for genuine forms of participation. In this article, we feed this discussion by exploring a play perspective towards the role of children in a PD process. We report on a case study in which we co-designed workshops together with 60 children aged 6-10 and 8 youth workers. The case study - called 'Making Things' - relied on a combination of methods, including participant observations, interviews, sensitising packages and participatory mapping. The reflection on the case study shows how our play perspective provided us with a way of making sense of children's interactions with each other, adults, objects and their context. Our reflections further point to the emergence of the role of the child as a 'process designer'. This role entails the collaboration with children for (co-)designing a PD process instead of merely participating in it. The implications of our findings, we hope, is that they extend the further debate on how to pursue genuine participation of children in PD.
... Although there is not a single agreed-upon definition, engagement is usually identified as comprising different interrelated dimensions, such as behavioural, affective, and cognitive [5]. Moreover, engagement in learning settings is often correlated to learning, e.g., [15,19,21]. For example, children's engagement in design workshops was correlated to children's quality of products in design, indicating their learning of game design [10]. ...
This paper describes a process called RAId (Rapid Analysis of design Ideas), which assists, in the ethical and inclusive analysis of large sets of design data. It is described against an activity with 120 teenagers working in small groups contributing ideas for the design of an interactive water-drinking bottle. Four investigators systematically examined fifty designs from the teenagers using six different lenses -- two concerned with the purpose of the designed technology (hydration and re-use), two with its desirability (aesthetics and cool) and two with the product concept (business and innovation). The investigators used these lenses to focus their examination. Each proposed a candidate solution based on what they had seen from the teen designs. The resulting concepts are examined against the teenagers' ideas that inspired them with attention being paid to when, and how often, ideas were put in mind. This analysis revealed three different idea types, core, add-ons and novel, each of which needed different treatment to bring it to fruition.
2012): Not a minor problem: involving adolescents in medical device design research, Theoretical Issues in Ergonomics Science, This article may be used for research, teaching, and private study purposes. Any substantial or systematic reproduction, redistribution, reselling, loan, sub-licensing, systematic supply, or distribution in any form to anyone is expressly forbidden. The publisher does not give any warranty express or implied or make any representation that the contents will be complete or accurate or up to date. The accuracy of any instructions, formulae, and drug doses should be independently verified with primary sources. The publisher shall not be liable for any loss, actions, claims, proceedings,
Digital technologies in combination with creative activities have been introduced in schools as a strategy for learning and teaching activities offering scaffolding opportunities. Additionally, digital game-based learning (DGBL) activities have also been tried out in schools in recent years, as well as different mobile technologies, with the ambition to create smart learning. In this study, we aim to explore how school children’s collaborative interactions, while engaged in problem-solving activities using smart and mobile technology, unfolds. Drawing from a contextual perspective on learning, our study combines theoretical views on joint participation, affordances and sense of community in relation to collaborative interactions. Questions posed in this study are: (1) In what ways do children’s digital game design activities drive and/or support collaborative interactions while engaged in problem-solving activities? and (2) How are children’s digital game design ideas manifested during game design activities involving smart mobile technology? The study is based on a case where a creative workshop involving 22 Swedish third-grade children (9-10 years of age) participating in game design activities carried out in a pedagogical lab setting. By employing a thematic analysis, the results of the study show that the children deployed different orientations in their collaborative interactions, and that a sense of community emerged when the children worked on solving the problem of designing and producing a joint digital game idea, using mobile technology. On the basis of this, we argue that, when designing for educational activities involving smart mobile technology, it is pivotal to be aware of the pedagogical context, since this aspect of the design creates meaningful collaborative interactions; it is only then smart mobile technology becomes smart. These results have important implications for the methodological field of including smart mobile technology in learning situations.
State-of-the-art and novel methodologies and technologies allow researchers, designers, and domain experts to pursue technology-enhanced learning (TEL) solutions targeting not only cognitive processes but also motivational, personality, or emotional factors. The International Conference in Methodologies and Intelligent Systems for Technology-Enhanced Learning (MIS4TEL'21) is hosted by the University of Salamanca and was held in Salamanca (Spain) from October 6–8, 2021. The annual appointment of MIS4TEL established itself as a consolidated fertile forum where scholars and professionals from the international community, with a broad range of expertise in the TEL field, share results and compare experiences. The calls for papers of the 11th edition of the conference welcomed novel research in TEL and expands on the topics of the previous editions: It solicited work from new research fields (ranging from artificial intelligence and agent-based systems to robotics, virtual reality, Internet of things and wearable solutions, among others) concerning methods and technological opportunities, and how they serve to create novel approaches to TEL, innovative TEL solutions, and valuable TEL experiences.
The understanding of subjective themes like affect and emotions constitute a challenge in interaction design, especially in the field of digital technology to support learning environments. Although literature concerning affective design presents varied results, there is still a lack of works with techniques and methods to support designers in their practice. In this work we present a practical approach based on Framework and Principles for the Design for Affectibility -- the design concerned with affective responses from users in their interaction with technology. The design of an application is illustrated within users' environment and with their active participation. Preliminary evaluation of such the application suggests that the principles can be a favorable instrument to bring affect considerations into the design of technology for learning environments.
This paper presents the process and outputs from a participatory design activity with secondary school children whose task was to design organic user interfaces (OUIs) for use in energy-aware applications. Although experienced in participatory design sessions with children and teenagers, the design team faced three new challenges in this work: how to convey the idea of OUIs, how to facilitate the pupils to design OUIs and how to interpret the OUI design ideas. To convey the ideas of OUI, the Obstructed Theatre method, used in other studies with children and teenagers, was used. In this work, the salient features of the OUI conveyed in the theatre were: its malleability, its potential to bend and change shape, its association with the body and its novelty. To facilitate the design, three scenarios of increasing user interface complexity were conveyed in the theatre; and three different media (i) slime and pipe cleaners, (ii) PlayDoh and small Lego bricks, (iii) fabric and sticky shapes that afforded the creation of designs representing future organic interactive technologies were deployed. To enable the design team to make sense of the resulting designs, a Comic Strip approach was used to capture the changes in the designs as they demonstrated interaction. The paper explores this work from three perspectives; first, the effectiveness of the Obstructed Theatre approach to convey requirements of OUIs, secondly, the effectiveness of the three media used in the design sessions to encourage design solutions for OUIs and thirdly, the quality and relevance of the design ideas generated in the sessions and communicated to the design team using the Comic Strips and their applicability to other contexts. The paper concludes with some thoughts on methods and materials that could be used to encourage design ideas for OUIs and offers some of the participants more innovative ideas for the research and development community.
Storytelling is an effective educational strategy to empower narrative, creativity, critical and divergent thinking, communicative and literary skills. Storytelling relies on narrative capabilities, such as literary artifices defined by the Italian writer Gianni Rodari in his masterpiece “Grammar of Fantasy” to teach children how to create stories. While narratives and principles for empowering storytelling skills are widely explored, educators and children are rarely supported in applying these theories by technological tools. To encourage children to improve their creativity, we proposed Novelette, a digital learning environment to support Rodari-style storytelling.
Participatory Design (PD) in various guises is a popular approach with the Interaction Design and Children (IDC) community. In studying it as a method very little work has considered the fundamentals of participation, namely how children choose to participate and how their ideas are included and represented. This paper highlights ethical concerns about PD with children within the context of information needed to consent. In helping children understand participation in PD, a central aspect is the necessity to help children understand how their design ideas are used which itself challenges researchers to seek a fair and equitable process that is describable and defensible. The TRAck (tracking, representing and acknowledging) Method, is described as an initial process that could meet this need. This is evaluated, in two forms, in a PD study with 84 children. The TRAck Method encouraged careful scrutiny of designs and allowed the researchers to distil useful design ideas although these were maybe not the most imaginative. There is a trade off between the limitations of applying such a process to PD against the benefits of ensuring fullinformed involvement of children.
Innovative design targets new user groups and application areas. One example is health promoting digital services. In such design contexts it is essential to take social and ethical challenges into consideration. In this paper we report from an on-going design research project aimed at designing digital peer support (DPS) for children cured from cancer. Peer support can meet the children's imperative need for social support. However, the design context is sensitive and gives rise to ethical challenges and considerations. We illustrate how participatory design (PD) activities can be designed to handle, ethical challenges when designing for and with children. We present lessons learned, including using familiar activities, using personas and including healthy children when possible. Further, we reflect on the need to proactively design an ethical perspective into the entire design process, introducing the concept Ethics in Design.
This paper explores challenging co-design dynamics in children, which are defined as a system of intragroup dynamics occurring within a group of at random or purposefully selected children sharing a common design goal. These dynamics impact children’s development of creative solutions in co-design, but have rarely been addressed in literature. Therefore, we set out a multiple case study with 9- to 10-year olds in three elementary schools. Although not an exhaustive list, our in-depth exploration resulted in the following problematic co-design dynamics: the apart together phenomenon, free riding, status inequality, the laughing out loud phenomenon, the greatest common divisor effect and polarization. In further research, we will investigate how to remediate these dynamics into positive forces.
This paper examines the involvement of users in the development of educational mobile applications intended for school-aged children and young people. We present the user workshops carried out in two different projects: 1) a game-like mobile tool to support children's zoo visits and 2) a self-monitoring tool to support students' management of their everyday life routines. We examine these workshops and their outcomes based on a framework for design activities with children: we evaluate the types of design contributions of the workshops (context/content) and examine the issues related to their organization (management/engagement). The approach allowed the participants to choose their preferred form of expression when producing their design ideas, which yielded a versatile selection of different types of outcomes. On the dimension of design contributions, the outcomes produced a fairly balanced set of context- and content-related ideas. In terms of design activities, the importance of meaningful preliminary activities to set the context and give adequate starting points was highlighted; however, they could have emphasized aspects of mobility even more.
Although child participation has been on the Child Computer Interaction (CCI) research agenda for many years, there is a lacuna in research on the roles children can play in long-term, sustained Participatory Design (PD) processes. This article explores the characteristics of an infrastructuring approach to PD that revolves around long-term and on-going socio-technical processes as opposed to the more typical short-term PD projects concerned with delivering a finished design product. Based on empirical data collected in three case studies involving both short-and long-term PD processes with children between 6 and 16 years old, we investigated different roles children can play in long-term, sustained PD. The contribution of this study is a comprehensive typology of children’s roles that goes beyond children’s participation in traditional, ‘staged’ PD. This typology offers the necessary vocabulary and analytical toolbox to account for key notions of infrastructuring, including ‘match-making’, ‘publics’, ‘agonism’, ‘attachments’, ‘shared issues’ and ‘capacity-building’.
This chapter is bridging the gap of Human Computer Interaction (HCI) and Requirement Engineering (RE) where the intended users or appropriators of the technology or service are children and young people. The research draws theory and practices from several disciplines: Human Computer Interaction (HCI) and Interaction Design (IXD) but also from psychology, educational technology and games.
Research into children and young people’s requirement needs as Player, Learner and User (PLU) is a main theme in Interaction Design for Children (IDC). This chapter focuses on the challenges and issues that arise when conducting requirement gathering with children and young people; it looks at common methods, approaches and methodological innovation in the current research while treating children as research partners in the requirements gathering process
This paper describes the process by which a group of seven and eight year old children designed their own digital writing tools following their own study of digital pens, personal digital assistants and tablet PCs. Some of the children's thoughts about the three technologies are presented and how these were carried through into their own designs is explored. It was found that although the children were quite individual in their designs, their peers easily influenced them and their designs were limited by their abilities with the low-tech prototyping environments. The paper concludes with some ideas for further work and provides some guidelines for researchers wanting to carry out design activities with children.
This paper sets forth a new technique for working with young children as design partners. Mixing ideas is presented as an additional Cooperative Inquiry design technique used to foster effective collaboration with young children (ages 4-6). The method emerged from our work with children on the Classroom of the Future project at the University of Maryland. A case study of this work is presented along with the implications of this method for future research.
This paper describes WeDD (Web Site Design Day), a project which brought university staff, parent helpers and school children together to design a school web site. The design process, which was modelled on participatory design, is described with reference to other work that has used a similar approach. The methods that were used to evaluate the process are described, and some general conclusions about the efficacy of the approach are presented. Difficulties with trying to work in a participatory way with children are examined. A participatory design model -the IBF model -is proposed; this defines terms for the different balances of participation. This is followed by a discussion of the variables that affect, both before and during the participatory process, the level of participation of the various categories of participant. The project environment and the skills of the participants are identified as being important in the initial positioning of a design project on the IBF model. Subject knowledge and personal security are considered to cause fluctuations within the project. The importance of controlling and monitoring these variables is discussed and further work in this area is described.
This paper describes a toolkit for measuring fun with children aged between 5 and 10. The relationship of fun to usability is discussed and three dimensions of fun; Endurability, Engagement, and Expectations are described. A set of tools that can be used in empirical studies to measure these dimensions of fun is described in detail. These tools include a Smileyometer, a Fun-Sorter and an Again-Again table. Three user trials, in which the tools have been used, are described and suggestions are made for the use of each of the tools with children. A discussion of the efficacy of the tools presents the findings that there is a sufficient subset that can be used to give a reliable measure of fun. Dependent on the nature of the event being evaluated and on the number of activities being compared; the subset will be differently constructed. The paper concludes with observations about the difficulties of measuring fun with children, and some areas for further work are presented.
This paper describes the design of Camelot, a mobile outdoor game for small groups of children aged 7-10. Camelot was designed with the aim to encourage social interaction between the players and to encourage physical activity. The paper extends the research literature on design methodology for children, by recording and reflecting upon the lessons learnt by applying a range of techniques for involving children in the design of interactive systems.
In this paper a particular design method is propagated as a supplement to existing descriptive approaches to current practice studies especially suitable for gathering requirements for the design of children's technology. The Mission from Mars method was applied during the design of an electronic school bag (eBag). The three-hour collaborative session provides a first-hand insight into children's practice in a fun and intriguing way. The method is proposed as a supplement to existing descriptive design methods for interaction design and children. KEYWORDS Design method, Mission from Mars method, eBag, requirements for new technology, shared narrative space, participatory design.
This paper describes a number of general design problems with adventure-like computer games for young children in order to
demonstrate the need for specific design guidelines for this type of products. These problems were experienced by children
participating in a number of user tests of existing computer games. By providing a generalization of these problems some first
directions are given for the nature of the design guidelines that could be developed. Furthermore, a first proposal for a
unifying framework to organize these guidelines is given.
This article reviews the literature on the role that children can play in the design of information technology applications intended for young users themselves. It discusses several relevant design theories—user-centered design, contextual design (CD) or inquiry, participatory design (PD), cooperative inquiry, informant design, and learner-centered design—looks at usability issues in relation to design and children, and presents a number of studies in which children have been actively involved in the design both of software and Web portals. Designers are finding that children as well as adults can have a valuable and complementary role to play in the design process, although its precise nature is a matter of debate.
This paper describes how fun can be used to maximize the learning potential of smart toys using tangible interfaces. Based on the purpose of fun, three orthogonal core sources of fun, accomplishment, discovery and bonding, are presented and linked to child development. This link is illustrated with two examples of tangible electronic games
A well-known security and identification problem involves the creation of secure but usable identification and authentication tools that the user is fully motivated to adopt. We describe an innovative solution to this problem: The Biometric Daemon, which takes its inspiration from two sources. It is firstly conceived as a biometric device which is initially imprinted with the fixed biometric properties of its owner, and is then regularly updated with the fluid biometric properties of its owner. However it also acts as an electronic pet which (i) part-shares identity with its owner, (ii) needs nurturing and (iii) effectively dies when separated from its owner for any length of time. Our pro- posal was inspired by the literary daemons described by Philip Pullman. Our Biometric Daemon synthesizes the properties of biometric token and daemon and we argue that it offers the basis for secure, usable and engaging iden- tification and authentication. 1. The problem The fundamental security problem involves controlling access to certain information, functions or areas - keeping certain people in and others out. Typically this problem is framed in terms of processes of identifica- tion (where an individual is asked who he or she is and responds with an identification token such as a name, email address or account number) and authentication (where an individual will be asked to demonstrate that they are the person they claim to be) (14). Authentica- tion can involve a variety of methods, but none are cur- rently problem-free. Firstly, an individual may authen- ticate their identity by drawing upon some memory, typically recalling a mother's maiden name, a place of birth or favorite town or alternatively, recognizing a familiar image embedded in a set of diverse images. Such systems are simple in concept, but these mecha- nisms create a problem commonly experienced by most computer users - memory overload. Many people cope with memory overload by relying on one or two obvi- ous passwords - the name of a partner or the date of birth of a child - and indeed these 'weak passwords' do ease the overload problem, but they then fail to offer adequate levels of protection. Reliance on names, for example, means that most codes can be easily broken. Conversely, 'strong passwords' (16) may offer higher security levels but are very difficult for an individual to
In todays homes and schools, children are emerging as frequentand experienced users of technology [3, 14]. As this trendcontinues, it becomes increasingly important to ask if we arefulfilling the technology needs of our children. To answer thisquestion, I have developed a research approach that enables youngchildren to have a voice throughout the technology developmentprocess. In this paper, the techniques of cooperativeinquiry will be described along with a theoretical frameworkthat situates this work in the HCI literature. Two examples oftechnology resulting from this approach will be presented, alongwith a brief discussion on the design-centered learning ofteam researchers using cooperative inquiry.
Costly props, complicated authoring technologies, and limited access to space are among the many reasons why children can rarely enjoy the experience of authoring room-sized interactive stories. Typically in these kinds of environments, children are restricted to being story participants, rather than story authors. Therefore, we have begun the development of `StoryRooms,' room-sized immersive storytelling experiences for children. With the use of low-tech and high-tech storytelling elements, children can author physical storytelling experiences to share with other children. In the paper that follows, we will describe our design philosophy, design process with children, the current technology implementation and example StoryRooms.
This paper presents Bluebells, a design method that balances child-centred design with expert design in a progressive approach that marries the best of both disciplines. The method is described in the context of a museum technologies project. Bluebells comprises several new design techniques; these are evaluated and discussed in the paper. The authors conclude with guidelines for future use of the Bluebells method including the importance of providing a context for design partners and allowing them to express their ideas in ways they are comfortable with.
This paper describes a study which compares the outcome of two early design methods for children: brainstorming and prototyping. The hypothesis is that children will uncover more design ideas when prototyping than when brainstorming, because prototyping requires the use of a wider range of Intelligences according to Gardner's Theory of Multiple Intelligences. The protocols were coded using Design Rationale Theory: distinguishing between Options (design solutions) and evaluation Criteria. The results show that as expected children provided more Options in sessions that appeal to a wider range of intelligences. However, unexpectedly children provided more Criteria in the session that appealed mostly to one intelligence.
In this paper we describe a technique of CurriculumFocused Design, and the aspects of our research experience on which the technique is based. Our technique is a variant of Druin's Cooperative Inquiry. Cooperative Inquiry is a well-developed design practice for children, but it has been practised largely outside the classroom. Druin's technique has also been developed in American schools, which have greater curriculum flexibility than English schools, which are highly curriculum-focused. We studied the English curriculum and identified an area that we believed could fruitfully be augmented by technology. Our design approach was novel insofar as our evaluation sessions doubled as lessons for students. Our interdisciplinary design team, including a former teacher with over 10 years' classroom experience, evaluated the interface in a classroom setting, providing strong environmental validity to the design process.
this paper defines a framework for understanding the various roles children can have in the design process, and how these roles can impact technologies that are created. Categories and Subject Descriptors: H.1.2 [Models and Principles]: User/Machine Systems---human factors; H.5.2 [Information Interfaces and Presentation]: User Interfaces---evaluation/methodology; interaction styles General Terms: Human Factors, Design, Theory Additional Key Words and Phrases: Children, design techniques, participatory design, evaluation, educational applications 1 CHILDREN AND TECHNOLOGY Computers for kids need to be fun like a friend, but can make me smart for school. They should also be friendly like my cat. The real thing is that they shouldn't make me have to type since I don't like that. I can talk much better! (Researcher Notes, April 3, 1999, Quote from an 8 year-old child). Children have their own likes, dislikes, curiosities, and nee
Research methods have been objects of discussions for dec- ades and defining research methods is still a quite consider- able challenge. However, it is important to understand re- search methods in different disciplines as it informs us on future directions and influences on the discipline. We conduct a survey of research methods in paper publica- tions. 105 papers on children's technology design are clas- sified on a two-dimensional matrix on research method and purpose. Our results show a strong focus on engineering of products as applied research and on evaluation of developed products in the field or in the lab. Also, we find that much research is conducted in natural setting environments with strong focus on field studies.
The paper motivates the need to acquire methodological knowledge for involving children as test users in usability testing. It introduces a methodological framework for delineating comparative assessments of usability testing methods for children participants. This framework consists in three dimensions: (1) assessment criteria for usability testing methods, (2) characteristics describing usability testing methods and, finally, (3) characteristics of children that may impact upon the process and the result of usability testing. Two comparative studies are discussed in the context of this framework along with implications for future research.
This paper describes the use of obstructed theatre as a novel design method for the elicitation of ideas from children for the design of a new mobile product. Obstructed theatre has previously been used, in this same context with adults, but this is the first paper that outlines its use with children. The paper describes the initial ideas for the script for the theatre and evaluates its use. It is shown that the method can be useful and it specifically conveyed the idea of portability and mobility but was less effective at conveying the more complex interactive ideas. Specifically the paper outlines the origins of the method, presents some reflection on the usefulness of the method and suggests how it can be used with other contexts.
The value of involving people as ‘users’ or ‘participants’ in the design process is increasingly becoming a point of debate. In this paper we describe a new framework, called ‘informant design’, which advocates efficiency of input from different people: maximizing the value of contributions tlom various informants and design team members at different stages of the design process. To illustrate how this can be achieved we describe a project that uses children and teachers as informants at difTerent stages to help us design an interactive learning environment for teaching ecology.
This paper describes how an e-learning product for teenagers was developed using design sessions based on a participatory design approach. The product, in the form of a computer game, is the outcome of a project that aims to improve teenagers' emotional intelligence. The specific user group is from institutes for pupils that had previously been excluded from mainstream education. The novelty in the approach is that participants were involved in designing a tool that was intended to modify their emotional behaviour - for this discussion, it is the participation in the process that is critical, less so the end product. The project and the design approaches are described and the participatory activity is reflected on. The benefits resulting from the design sessions were bi-directional: the engagement with the prospective users was valuable both for the actual contribution to the product design and as an experience for the participants.
Child Centered Evaluation: Strengthening the voice of the child by adding the teacher to the child/designer dyad
- S Pardo
- S Howard
- F Vetere
Pardo, S., S. Howard, and F. Vetere, Child Centered
Evaluation: Strengthening the voice of the child by
adding the teacher to the child/designer dyad,,
Advances in Human-Computer Interaction, 2008.
Frames of mind: The theory of multiple intelligences Basic books Design at work: Cooperative design of computer systems Doing Research with Children
- H Gardner
- J Greenbaum
- M Kyng Greig
- A Taylor
Gardner, H., Frames of mind: The theory of multiple
intelligences. 1983, Basic books. New York: 1983,
11. Greenbaum, J. and M. Kyng, Design at work:
Cooperative design of computer systems. 1991,
Lawrence Erlbaum. Hillsdale, NJ: 1991,
12. Greig, A. and A. Taylor, Doing Research with
Children. 1999, Sage. London: 1999,
Human Centred design processes for interactive systems
ISO, 13407 Human Centred design processes for
interactive systems, vol 13407. International Standards.
1999.
Designing For or Designing With? Informant Design for Interactive Learning Environments Comparing Early Design Methods for Children In Proc of IDC'07
- M Scaife
Scaife, M., et al. Designing For or Designing With?
Informant
Design
for
Interactive
Learning
Environments. In Proc.of CHI'97. ACM Press, Atlanta,
USA, 1997.
29. Sluis-Thiescheffer, W., Bekker, T., Eggen, B.
Comparing Early Design Methods for Children In Proc
of IDC'07. ACM Press, Aalborg, Denmark, 2007.