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Sensitivity to Parental Play Beliefs and Mediation in
Young Children’s Hybrid Play Activities
Lizzy Bleumersa, Karen Mouwsa, Jonathan Huygheb, Maarten Van Mechelenb, Ilse
Mariëna and Bieke Zamanb
aiMinds-SMIT-Vrije Universiteit Brussel
Pleinlaan 2
1050 Brussels, Belgium
Lizzy.Bleumers@vub.ac.be
biMinds-CUO|Social Spaces-KULeuven
Parkstraat 45 bus 3605
3000 Leuven, Belgium
Maarten.VanMechelen@soc.kuleuven.be
ABSTRACT
Supporting young children's play in the digital world is a
challenging endeavor. Little is known, however, about the
parental beliefs and mediation practices regarding children’s
facilitated play in hybrid (mixed digital/physical) environments
and how one can account for this through design. Following a
Value Sensitive Design approach, we performed: 1) a conceptual
literature investigation, 2) an empirical survey with 1398 parents
of child(ren) aged 4-6 years, and 3) a technical investigation on
online customer reviews of hybrid playful products for children.
Our findings reveal the role of parents’ mediation and beliefs in
shaping young children's play. We provide designers with
guidance to be accountable of the way design properties can foster
parental play beliefs and support adult-child interaction. We
conclude that young children's facilitated play in hybrid
environments is shaped by both the social context in which it is
enacted and the affordances provided through design.
Categories and Subject Descriptors
H.5.2 [User Interfaces]: User-centered design.
General Terms
Design, Human Factors.
Keywords
Play, Facilitation, Parents, Intergenerational, Design, Research
1. INTRODUCTION
Play experiences come in many forms. The diversity of play is
illustrated by Sutton-Smith [19] who dedicates an entire work to
its ambiguities. In his book’s introduction, he observes that
although we have all engaged in it as children and adults, we find
play difficult to define. This is not surprising as “Almost anything
can allow play to occur within its boundaries…” [19, p.3].
Play experiences can indeed surround different settings, media
and objects, both of a physical and digital nature. In the current
paper, we will focus on young children’s hybrid play experiences
as a form of facilitated play.
Hybrid play challenges a strict dichotomy between physical and
digital, non-mediated and mediated play by resting on “the
intersection of material and digital – traditional toys and digital
games” [20, p.238]. As Tyni, Kultima and Mäyrä [19] point out
hybrid play products, such as Invizimals and Skylanders, seem to
present a middle-ground. They appear to form an opportunity to
combine the best of both sides, which is of interest both from a
cultural and commercial perspective.
Several authors have tried to define and classify hybrid play and
games, also referred to as mixed or trans-reality play and games
[13, 18]. Tyni, Kultima and Mäyrä [20] distinguish two
dimensions: synchronicity and dependency. These refer to the
extent to which the digital and physical experiences coincide, and
the extent to which one can have a meaningful play experience
without either the digital or material component, respectively.
Regardless of whether play practices revolve around material or
digital objects and environments or both, they are all part of what
Lauwaert [12] describes as geographies of facilitated play. She
defines this facilitation as “…making (an action or process) easy
or easier, possible, smooth or smoother. To facilitate is to enable
and assist but also to promote, encourage and catalyze. Facilitated
play practices are shaped by the combination of design
characteristics of a toy and the discourse surrounding the toy” [12,
p.12]. Lauwaert [12] argues that play practices can be situated
either within the core of what the designers intended, but also
involve interactions that are far removed from those intentions.
These peripheral play practices show how people make toys and
games their own, rather than purely ‘consuming’ them.
In addition to technology, young children’s facilitated play is also
shaped by the social context in which it takes place. In a pre-
school setting, practitioners provide children with individual and
joint play activities and materials, considering them as
instrumental to children’s learning (see, for example, [17]). In a
family context, parents and grandparents are not only important
decision-makers in what toys or games children play with, but can
also become play buddies (e.g. [21]) alongside children’s siblings
and peers.
In the current paper, we concentrate on the involvement of parents
in young children’s play. In particular, we explore parents’
perceptions of play and parental involvement in shaping young
children’s (4–6y) facilitated play.
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IDC '15, June 21 - 25, 2015, Medford, MA, USA
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DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1145/2771839.2771857
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This paper makes an important contribution to the design of
hybrid play for children, by considering how hybrid playful
products or environments can support different parental play
beliefs, mediation styles and roles. To our knowledge, this paper
constitutes a first attempt in this regard.
2. ADULT FACILITATION OF PLAY
The studies by Fisher et al. [5] and McInnes and Birdsey [15]
constitute rare examples of research into the perception of play by
parents. Their work suggests that adult beliefs concerning play
have important implications for children’s play activities.
Looking at mothers’ perception of play using a survey-based
approach, Fisher and colleagues [5] found that mothers who
attribute a stronger educational value to play activities also report
those play activities to be more frequent.
McInnes and Birdsey [15] report more comprehensive work,
consulting also - in addition to parents - teachers, children and
adolescents via questionnaires and interviews. They expose
interesting differences between these actors’ play beliefs. They
find that, unlike adults, children do not tend to differentiate
between play activities. They also associate play with the absence
of adults, meaning that adults seeking to facilitate play may
undermine it, unless they adopt a playful attitude themselves.
Finally, parents appear to emphasize benefits of play in terms of
social and emotional development, whereas teachers are more
convinced of its educational value, particularly when they
structure the play activities.
The aforementioned studies looked at play beliefs in general, but
tell us little about how these beliefs extend to children’s play that
is facilitated by technology, and by hybrid products, in particular.
Furthermore, these studies do not explore how playful
technologies may facilitate a type of play that either matches or
conflicts with parents play beliefs. This brings us to the first two-
folded research question that we will address in this paper:
RQ1: Play beliefs
(a) What beliefs do parents hold concerning young
children’s facilitated play?
(b) How may hybrid playful products support these play
beliefs?
Parents may both unconsciously and consciously exert influence
on to what extent and how their children play with hybrid
products. Parental mediation research is insightful in this regard.
It typically looks at how parents mediate their children’s
technology use, including play and gaming, in light of the possible
benefits or risks that they attribute to it.
At least three different parental mediation styles can be identified
based on prior research: “Restrictive mediation involves
exercising control over the amount of time children spend on
media and the content they are allowed to use. Active mediation is
instructive or normative, and extends to sharing critical
comments, including an explanation of complex content. Co-use,
finally, amounts to watching or playing together as a deliberate
strategy to share children’s media usage.” [16, p.252].
Surveying parents about their young children’s internet use (2-
12y), Nikken and Jansz [16] identify a fourth style called
supervision, which means that parents are present while the child
is online. They find that overall parents of young children tend to
rely mostly on supervision, which allows them to combine
mediation with household chores. With regard to playing casual
games online, co-use and the use of general regulations occur
relatively more often than in the case of console games. Casual
games apparently present an opportunity for parents to engage in a
practice with their children that they both can enjoy. At the same
time, it also comes with concerns in terms of, for example, time
spent on it.
For a more in-depth investigation of the dyadic interaction
between adult family members and children during play, the work
by Davis and colleagues is of note. Davis et al. [3] observed play
between children and their grandparents in playgroups. According
to their findings, grandparents mainly maintain a safe and caring
environment by coordinating and watching play rather than
actively engaging in it. When they do actively join in, play tends
to be brief and more open-ended. The researchers emphasize that
throughout intergenerational play, children and grandparents take
on both more traditional roles (e.g., grandchild as apprentice and
grandparent as instructor) as well as relatively unexpected, non-
traditional roles (e.g., grandparent as teaser and grandchild as
resistor).
We wanted to follow up on the above research on parental
mediation and intergenerational play, getting a more detailed view
on parent’s mediation strategies for four to six year old children in
particular. Similar to play beliefs, we were also interested to see
how hybrid playful products may shape different mediation styles
and types of interaction between (grand)parents during play. This
is articulated in our second two-folded research question:
RQ2: Play mediation
(a) How do parents mediate and engage with young
children’s facilitated play and related technology use?
(b) How may hybrid playful products shape adult
involvement with children during play?
In order to address these questions, we conducted both an
empirical as well as a technical investigation as will be discussed
in the following section.
3. METHOD
Our research approach draws from a tripartite methodology
inherent to what is known as Value Sensitive Design [6]. Value
Sensitive Design (VSD) is a theoretically grounded approach,
which aims to account for human values over the course of a
design trajectory by conducting iterations of three types of
investigation:
• Conceptual investigation: Focused on developing a
conceptual framework through literature study that enables to
identify and understand who we are designing for and the
values these stakeholders might hold that are critical to using
the technology under development.
• Empirical investigation: Emphasis on gaining more
knowledge of the individuals or groups making use of the
technology and the sociocultural context they use it in,
through surveys, observations or other empirical methods.
• Technical investigation: Zooms in on the technology at hand,
e.g., by means of technology reviews or prototyping, to
establish characteristics and mechanisms through which the
technology may facilitate or conflict with human values.
Applying VSD in the strict sense would have led us to focus
exclusively on values, which can be understood in a descriptive
sense, as what a person or group of people consider to be
important, or in a more normative sense, what people feel is right
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or appropriate [7, 11, 14]. Instead, we adopted a broader
approach, paying attention to play beliefs - which encompass
values both in a descriptive and normative sense - and parental
mediation through which those beliefs are enacted. Based on the
literature in the previous section, we argue that sensitivity to both
is required when designing playful products for young children.
The given study is part of a design research project, called
WOOPI, which aims to explore meaningful hybrid play
experiences for young children (four to six years old) by
combining a digital environment with physical cards and toys. As
social scientists, we were part of a consortium joining academic
and industry partners.
The work discussed in the current paper presents a first completed
wave of three types of investigation. During this research wave,
we focused primarily on parents as direct stakeholders in the
design of hybrid playful products for young children. The goal is
to follow-up with similar investigations including the play beliefs
and roles of children, peers and educators.
3.1 Conceptual investigation
The conceptual investigation was described in Section 2. As can
be seen, it served as a means to delineate our research questions
and theoretically ground the empirical and technical
investigations. In what follows, we describe the particular
methods used during the latter investigations, which enabled us to
provide a preliminary answer on the research questions stated in
Section 2.
3.2 Empirical investigation
Our empirical investigation served to complement findings from
the literature. As such, we hoped to shed additional light on
parental beliefs on and mediation of young children’s play (i.e.
RQ1a and RQ2a).
We conducted a survey directed towards parents with at least one
child between the ages of four to six. This survey encompassed
various questions relevant for the project consortium. Beyond
inquiring into basic demographic information, it also addressed
tablet and smartphone usage, collectible card trading practices,
play practices, and adult attitudes towards and mediation of those
practices.
The call for participation in the survey was sent out to 38230
recipients in Belgium (Flanders) through the mailing list of one of
the consortium partners. A total of 2177 parents participated in the
online survey, which resulted in 1398 completed entries of parents
with at least one child between four and six years old.
The majority of the participants were female (n = 1220; 87%) and
the average age was 34 years old (SD = 4.51). The youngest
participant was 21 and the oldest 52. In virtually all cases (n =
1391; 99%) Dutch was reported to be spoken at home. Parents
were asked to answer question with one of their children in mind,
aged between four to six. 45% of those children were reported to
be boys (n = 630), and 55% were reported to be girls (n = 768).
In most cases, there was access to a computer (n = 1365; 98%),
digital tablet (n = 1202; 86%) or smartphone (n = 1213; 87%) at
home. In 91% of the families with a digital tablet, this device is
also used by the children between four and six years old (n =
1096; 78%). For families owning a computer or smartphone, the
four to six year-olds use it only in, resp., 47% (n = 636; 45%) and
39% of those cases (n = 471; 34%).
3.3 Technical investigation
While the survey enabled us to gain further insight into parental
play beliefs and mediation, we realized that it was not a suitable
instrument to address the specific role of hybrid playful products.
Indeed, hybrid play is a broad concept that cannot easily be
conveyed and discussed by means of a survey.
Hence, we selected another procedure to assess how hybrid toys
and games could support particular play beliefs and forms of
parental involvement (i.e., RQ1b and RQ2b). More particularly,
we analyzed online customer reviews of hybrid playful products
for children. In such reviews, the properties of hybrid playful
products are described from the perspective of adults based on
their experiences with these products.
We selected cases from a list of hybrid playful products gathered
by researchers in the Hybridex project. The Hybridex project
focused on entertainment products that combine physical and
digital user experiences. As such, this list of cases provided a
relevant starting point for our own search for cases [9]. From this
list, we selected cases of which the target audience included four,
five or six year old children. This means that a toy for ages 5+, for
example, would be included.
Customer reviews of these products were collected from
amazon.com, the largest online retailer in the US. It provides the
opportunity for customers to give feedback about products and
vote about the helpfulness of other people’s feedback. For every
selected product, we conducted a qualitative analysis of the top-10
customer reviews, sorted by most helpful. This was on average
9,4 percent of the total amount of reviews per product. The
reviews were coded bottom-up, yielding descriptive codes on
actors involved, aspects of children’s play, and types of
intergenerational interaction. In total, 270 reviews for 27 different
hybrid playful products were analyzed.
4. FINDINGS
In what follows, we discuss the findings from our empirical and
technical investigations in response to the research questions
identified in Section 2.
We first address parental beliefs concerning play (cf. RQ1a and
RQ1b). In particular, our empirical investigation brings to light
benefits attributed by parents to facilitated play and our technical
investigation reveals how hybrid playful products may support
these perceived benefits.
Secondly, we elaborate on parental involvement in facilitated play
(cf. RQ2a and RQ2b). Here, we discuss what we learned from the
survey with regard to parental mediation of four to six year old
children’s play and technology use. The results from the technical
investigation then show how hybrid playful products can promote
different forms of parental involvement.
4.1 Play beliefs
Our empirical and technical investigations help us to articulate the
benefits that parents attribute to facilitated play and how hybrid
play technologies may support those beliefs.
In this and the following section (4.2), we will first describe the
outcomes of the empirical investigation, followed by the findings
of the technical investigation. In Annex 8.1, the reader can find an
overview of the survey questions of which results are discussed in
this paper. In the remainder of this paper, superscripts q1 to q7,
have been used in the text to refer to the corresponding questions.
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In the survey that was part of our empirical investigation, we
probed parents’ attitudes towards physical and digital forms of
play. When asked for their preference, the majority (n = 976,
70%) chose physical or material play over digital q1. The rationale
provided includes various benefits attributed to physical play in
terms of physical activity and health (e.g., spending active time
away from the screen), social and emotional development (e.g.,
playing together), and creativity and imagination q2. The few
respondents who preferred digitally enabled play (n = 68; 5%) do
so for its capacity to increase digital skills.
The aforementioned benefits re-appear in our technological
investigation where we analyzed customer reviews of hybrid
playful products. For more information on these products, we
refer the reader to Annex 8.2. The physical and spatial properties
of these products were mentioned as a means to get children
moving and ‘release’ them from the screen. The use of tangible
objects was also mentioned to enhance reflective behavior when
interacting with the screen (Ex. 1).
Ex. 1 (A father on Tiggly Counts) “And it's so great to see him
not just tapping on the screen but actually thoughtfully placing the
toys down when he thinks it's the right answer”
A number of products are lauded for their ability to teach children
motor skills and cognitive skills (for instance, problem-solving
when they require children to try out different solutions through a
trial-and-error approach). Furthermore, it is suggested that when
toys involve learning activities, parents’ concerns and measures
about screen-time may be alleviated (Ex. 2).
Ex. 2 (An aunt on Tiggly Counts) “My 4-year old niece loves
these new toys! She loves playing with her iPad, but my brother
usually limits her screen time, so these toys are really great for
both of them! My niece enjoys playing with the ipad while my
brother is not worried about her spending too much time with her
iPad since she is learning her numbers and playing with real toys
at the same time. She got it and couldn't stop playing for hours
with all three apps!”
Some parents pick up the fact that playful technologies promote
social interaction and cooperation among children or provide a
virtual companion, which children can cherish and care for (Ex.
3). Such features can be seen as beneficial for social and
emotional development.
Ex. 3 (A parent about Eyepet – PS3) “Eyepet is perfect for her.
The wand is easy to use for her and the game is really cute. She
loves dressing in the different wacky outfits and giving it a bath. I
hope PS3 comes out with more younger kid friendly games for the
MOVE.”
Certain hybrid play products involving construction sets were
appreciated because they are believed to spark personal creativity
and imagination. In the following instance (Ex. 4), playing with a
hybrid building set with a limited set of possibilities, led to
playing with LEGO where possibilities are less constrained.
Ex. 4 (A father about Laser Pegs 8-in-1 Sports Car Building Set)
“We (me and my son) didn’t stop there. After we finished making
all 8 of them, my son used a few of his old legos and built a car
out of his own imagination. How great is that!? Now he plays
with it all day which keeps him busy all day and he loves it.”
Some parents also recognize the creativity that children show in
making a hybrid playful product their own (Ex. 5). Particularly,
when the physical and digital play components are less dependent
on each other, children are easily able to ‘remix’ them by using
other physical toys or even household items in relation to the
overall play experience. In the Angry Bird Action game, for
example, which like the digital version allows players to catapult
birds towards pigs, only three wooden blocks are included in the
base game. But this was not an issue for the following parent.
Ex. 5 (A mother about the Angry Birds Action game) “The
blocks are standard, natural wood blocks - nothing too amazing.
You can stack the blocks a bunch of different ways but don't be
surprised when your kids get inventive and find all kinds of other
things to stack on the mat to set the pig on.”
As the above example shows, a limited set of physical objects in
the original product package is not necessarily perceived as a
problem, when a work-around is possible.
4.2 Mediation styles and interaction roles
Our empirical and technical investigations allow us to refine our
understanding of parental mediation in relation to young children
(4-6y) and of how hybrid play technology may promote particular
types of intergenerational interaction, respectively,
The survey results from our empirical investigation show that
parents most often supervise their four- to six-year-olds during
digital media use q3, which is in line with the findings of Nikken
and Jansz [16]. Moreover, when engaging in co-use, children
usually tend to be the initiator of this joint play. In terms of
restrictions, most parents limit the screen-time children get on
tablets and smartphones. For example, 59% of the participants,
owning a tablet used by their child, limit uninterrupted tablet use
to 15 to 30 minutes (n = 647; 46%) q4. Furthermore, control over
the installation of applications rests mostly with the parents, rarely
with the children themselves. When children are allowed to install
apps on tablets (n = 180; 13%) or smartphones (n = 57; 4%) q5, the
majority has to request permission first (resp., n = 131 and n = 38,
i.e. 73% and 67% of those that are allowed) q6.
With regard to the different actors involved in mediating
children’s digital media use and literacy q7, school (M = 4.5; SD =
0.59) and parents (M = 4.1; SD = 0.69) are attributed the largest
role in guiding their children in the digital world. Peers are
deemed significantly less important than school and parents in this
matter (M = 3.3; SD = 0.90).
Our technical investigation sheds further light on how and to what
extent playful hybrid products shape adult’s involvement in
facilitated play. Some of the customer reviews we analyzed
illustrate, for instance, how technology may necessitate adult
involvement. Certain hybrid play products require the use of tablet
or smartphone. Young children often do not have their own
mobile device and depend on adults to share their device (Ex. 6).
Ex. 6 (A parent about Sphero 2.0) “My kids love playing with it
and using my iPhone or tablet to roll the Sphero around the
house.”
In addition, it was frequently mentioned that adults needed to help
children with the hybrid play products. This ranges from setting
things up (e.g., downloading the app, setting up an account,
connecting toys and devices) to providing support during play
activities (Ex. 7).
Ex. 7 (A grandmother on Laser Pegs 8-in-1 Sports Car Building
Set) “Small parts, and the need for some finer motor skills than
my grandson currently possesses, allowed Papa to build with him.
Thus, the ‘Laser Pegs 8-in-1 Building Set’ is great for
intergenerational activity and helps strengthen bonds between
parents or grandparents and their children.”
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As shown in this example, properties requiring help may be
appreciated as a means for adult-child interaction and to
strengthen intergenerational bonds. However, they may also be
considered to be a disadvantage when adults were hoping the toy
or game would keep children occupied (Ex. 8). Indeed, some
products are praised precisely because they keep children busy
when adults are involved in other activities, for instance, while
traveling by car.
Ex. 8 (A mother about Ubooly) “The ONLY reason I did not give
Ubooly 5 stars is because it does require parental supervision for
my 3-year-olds (they just turned 3). So, if you have younger kids,
you will need to help them sometimes and explain some things to
them, which I wasn't totally expecting.”
Most often, adults mention the fact that the hybrid toys and games
give them the opportunity to spend a pleasant time with the
children. This appears to be due to the fact that they appreciate the
quality time together, but also enjoy playing with the products
themselves. In fact, some parents acknowledge they became so
enchanted with a product that they started playing with it, by
themselves (Ex. 9).
Ex. 9 (A mother about Sphero 2.0) “It was so much fun I had to
get one for myself, lol. Now we have 3 Spheros running around
the house. I'm already up to level 13 on my level ups and have
unlocked all the cute tricks (cores).”
Finally, we did not only observe appreciation for creativity in
children’s appropriation of playful products, we also found
accounts of adults participating in such forms of appropriative
play. For instance, the robotic ball, Sphero 1, affords a very broad
range of structured and unstructured play activities. It can be
played with through existing mobile apps that heavily structure
game-play, but can also be part of self-invented play activities,
which the following father joined in on (Ex. 10).
Ex. 10 (A father about Sphero 1) “There are so many different
apps and games that you can play with it that they haven't gotten
bored yet! We have actually been having a lot of fun coming up
with our own games to play with Sphero as well.”
5. DISCUSSION
We will now deal with the design implications of our findings,
before reflecting on our methodology and pointing out future
research steps.
The previous section highlighted particular parental play beliefs
(i.e. perceived benefits) and types of parental involvement in
relation to facilitated play. Findings also helped us recognize that
hybrid playful products can support these benefits and types of
parent-child interaction to a greater and lesser extent. In this
section, we offer an instrument that helps designers account for
these findings.
5.1 Design implications for hybrid play
In this section, we discuss the design implications of our findings.
We hereby aim to provide designers of hybrid play with an
instrument that aims to (1) promote sensitivity to the various
parental benefits attributed to children’s facilitated play and types
of parental involvement, and (2) help them to identify their own
position and focus in relation to these sensitivities. This way, they
can become more accountable in the decisions they make as to
which play beliefs and forms of parental participation are to be
supported in the design. Figures 1 and 2 illustrate this instrument,
which we will discuss in more detail in the following two
sections.
Figure 1. Alignment with parental play beliefs
5.1.1 Alignment with play beliefs
When working on hybrid playful products, designers may pursue
the following benefits attributed to play by parents to a greater or
lesser extent:
1. Entertainment: Emphasizing fun and amusement, where
play activities are focused on keeping children entertained,
occupied or diverted.
2. Education: Emphasizing the educational value of play by
addressing the development of cognitive, motor or digital
skills, for example, by including problem-solving activities
where physical toys need to be matched with a digital
configuration.
3. Physical wellbeing: Emphasizing physical wellbeing by
encouraging children to be physically active, keeping time
spent looking at a device screen in check, and providing an
overall safe activity that limits risks of physical harm.
4. Social and emotional wellbeing: Emphasizing social and
emotional wellbeing by promoting social interaction, either
with other children or with the technology as social actor
(e.g. a digital, physical or hybrid companion).
5. Creativity: Emphasizing creative aspects of play by
including productive play activities (e.g., building and
storytelling) and facilitating re-mixing of physical and digital
play components and other forms of appropriation.
These benefits are not mutually exclusive. A toy might be
envisioned, for instance, that requires cooperation (i.e. social
benefit) between children to solve particular problems (i.e.
educational benefit). They can each be pursued to a greater or
lesser extent.
Using a radar chart, designers can visualize their position as
illustrated in Figure 1. The bold lines represent example data. The
fabricated data, in this example, could represent a designer’s
analysis of a first playful prototype that she or he created, showing
that it emphasizes physical wellbeing, whereas educational
benefits were hardly considered. The radar chart could also be
used earlier in the design process, when setting the design goals.
We note that the aforementioned benefits can also be
accomplished in different ways. Zooming in on creative qualities
of play, for instance, productive practices can lie at the heart of
the playful technology itself (see, for example the work of Cassell
and Ryokai [2], on technologies that support fantasy and
storytelling). Creativity can also express itself in the way children
and adults make the playful product their own. Observing such
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often unexpected, idiosyncratic uses can be highly insightful. This
process of appropriation, as Dourish argues, “is similar to
customization, but concerns the adoption patterns of technology
and the transformation of practice at a deeper level.
Understanding appropriation is a key problem for developing
interactive systems, since it critical to the success of technology
deployment.” [4, p.465]
5.1.2 Support for child-adult interaction
Overall, the following types of parental involvement can be (more
or less) accounted for in the design of hybrid playful products:
1. Supervision: Positioning parents as supervisors by helping
them to keep an eye on play activities, either while co-
located or through remote monitoring, and supporting
children’s single or peer-to-peer play.
2. Control: Positioning parents as gatekeepers by enabling
them to grant access to play devices and activities and
necessitating adult intervention to set up play activities (e.g.
to connect the physical toy and digital device).
3. Care: Positioning parents as caregivers by involving them in
setting up the play environment and inviting them as
audience for children, possibly promoting more
‘performative’ aspects of children’s play activities.
4. Play: Positioning parents as play buddies by actively
engaging them in the play activities and considering how
these activities can be appealing both for children as well as
adults.
5. Instruction: Positioning parents as guides throughout playful
experiences by introducing entry points during play activities
where adults can pass on skills and knowledge to children.
Similar to the approach for play beliefs, researchers and designers
can use Figure 2 as a lens to position their own work and establish
which types of parental involvement they have focused on. Note
that the plotted data again are example data, to show what a
finished chart could look like. In this illustration, the radar chart
represents a position that places most emphasis on parental
control.
When using the design instrument, it is important to understand
that how parents mediate and participate in young children’s
facilitated play activities depends both on the affordances of the
playful product itself (e.g., does the play experience appeal to
adults as well) and on circumstance (e.g., parents being occupied
with other activities such as work and household-related
activities).
Figure 2. Support for parent-child interaction
5.2 Methodological reflection
Value Sensitive Design (VSD) has been criticized for being a top-
down approach, which gives too much weight to the voice of the
researchers in design projects [1]. Because of this, researchers
involved in VSD-based studies, should heed the risk of
ventriloquism in which the researcher’s view is stated as if
articulated by stakeholders. While we took care to avoid this in
our own study, it is a fact that the two sensitizing concepts that we
identified, parental play beliefs and mediation styles, had a pivotal
role in how we collected and interpreted the data. It may have also
caused us to neglect other aspects that are important, either from
the point of research (e.g., the role digital literacy) and from the
perspective of parents’ themselves. Moreover, at this point we
have focused exclusively on parents, looking at children’s play
from their point of view, not including children themselves or
educators who are also important stakeholders.
As noted earlier, we did not apply VSD in the strict sense. Instead,
we adopted a broader approach, paying attention to play beliefs
and parental mediation through which those beliefs are enacted.
Here, we note another difference as well. Whereas Friedman et al
[7] hold a rather static notion of values, we see values as being
situated, specific and dynamic (in line with [8, 10]). As such,
designing playful (hybrid) interactions is not simply a question of
identifying values and then designing for them, but a process that
reformulates values. To accomplish this, we should investigate
how play beliefs and values are put into everyday practice and,
afterwards, identify potential value conflicts between different
stakeholder groups (e.g. children, parents, educators,
designers/researchers). This will require additional VSD
iterations.
In light of the previous observations, the design instrument
provided in this paper should be seen as a guide for designers to
pay attention to how they position parental involvement in their
design and which benefits they emphasize. It can help designers to
remain mindful of this throughout the whole design process from
conceptualization to evaluation and compare their perspective
with that of other stakeholders. It is not a recipe that specifies
what designers should do to guarantee the success of their hybrid
toy or game.
A final methodological reflection pertains to our technical
investigation. The customer reviews from Amazon.com, we
gained candid insights into the play practices of children and
parents as described from the viewpoint of adults. As the reviews
are often written as an advice to others, these illustrate what is
believed to be important by those that wrote up the reviews. They
also refer to the context of play (setting up toys, parent’s own
interest in the toys, etc.). Such examples are insightful and
highlight particular phenomena, but whether these can be
generalized requires further investigation.
5.3 Future research
Value Sensitive Design is a highly iterative approach. As the
project continues, we plan to perform two new research waves.
Firstly, we will complement our investigations with Participatory
Design sessions with various direct stakeholders. These will serve
to ensure that children, (grand)parents and educators are given
room to express in their own words or with their own playful
products and self-created artifacts what they find imperative with
regard to (hybrid) play.
Secondly, we will translate our findings into different prototypes,
each aligning to a greater or lesser extent with the play beliefs and
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types of adult involvement identified earlier. These prototyping
activities will require additional conceptual, empirical and
technical investigations where we will:
• Investigate whether additional sensitivities are called for, in
particular, sensitivity to digital literacy
• Widen our scope to children’s and educators’ play beliefs
and the involvement of peers and pre-school stakeholders in
young children’s facilitated play
• Evaluate prototypes through playtesting, involving all direct
stakeholders, to validate to what extent and how these
prototypes facilitate particular forms of intergenerational
play and how children and adults respond to them
6. CONCLUSION
Young children’s play is a ‘facilitated’ experience in several
ways. It is shaped both by the playful products that are used as
well as the situation in which it takes place. Parents are an
inextricable part of the social context of play. The different ways
by which parents perceive, mediate and engage with children’s
play can be accounted for to some extent in the design of
facilitated (hybrid) play. The design instrument provided in this
paper helps designers and researchers to position their own
approach in this regard, and compare it to the preferences of other
stakeholders in the design process.
7. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
This study was part of WOOPI (http://bit.ly/1F24wRO), a
cooperative-PLUS project facilitated by iMinds Media and funded
by IWT for the participating companies. We would also like to
acknowledge the work of the researchers of the Hybridex project
who made the list of hybrid playful products that they identified
over the course of that project publicly available. Finally, we
thank colleagues and the appointed reviewers for having provided
us with helpful comments on how to improve this paper.
8. ANNEX
8.1 Survey questions
Table 1 provides an overview of the survey questions that led to
the results that were discussed in this paper. Codes q1 to q7 have
been used in Section 4 (Findings) to refer to these questions.
Table 1. Survey questions referred to in findings.
Ref
Question
Response
q1
What do you prefer for your
child between 4 and 6 years old?
(single choice)
Digital games,
Physical games, I
have no preference
q2
In case of preference in q1:
What is the added value of
digital games/physical games for
you?
(open question)
q3
The following questions pertain
to your child between 4 and 6
years old: How often…
Questions based on parental
mediation scales by Nikken and
Jansz (2014) for each mediation
style
(single choice)
Never, Rarely,
Occasionally,
Regularly, Very
often (or Does not
apply)
e.g. (How often) do you play a
digital game together with your
child, because your child wants
to? (co-use)
q4
How long can your child
(between 4 and 6 years old) use a
tablet without interruption?
(single choice)
Between 0 and 15
minutes, Between
15 and 30 minutes,
Between 30 and 60
minutes, Longer
than 60 minutes,
Unlimited
q5
Who installs apps on the
tablet(s)?
Same question was asked with
regard to smartphone(s)
(multiple choice)
Me, My partner,
My child(ren),
Other
q6
In case children install apps on
the tablet according to q5:
Does your child / do your
children have to ask for
permission to install an app on
the tablet(s)?
Same question was asked with
regard to smartphone(s)
(single choice)
Yes, No, It depends
q7
How important do you think…
…the role of the school is in
guiding children in the digital
world?
… the role of the parents is in
guiding children in the digital
world?
… the role of peers is in guiding
children in the digital world?
(single choice)
Not important at
all, Not important,
Neutral, Important,
Very important
8.2 Hybrid cases
Several hybrid playful products were referred to in the customer
reviews quoted in this paper. Table 2 offers some basic
background information and short description of these cases in
order of appearance.
Table 2. Hybrid playful products quoted in customer reviews.
Case
Background and description
Tiggly
Counts
Producer: Tiggly (2014)
Ages: 3-7
http://get.tiggly.com/counts/
Tiggly Counts is a set of magnetic counting
rods that interact with learning apps on tablets.
It comes with free apps that connect children to
a playful world of math learning.
EyePet – PS3
Producer: SCE London Studio, Playlogic Game
Factory - Sony Computer Entertainment (2009)
Ages: All ages
http://www.playstation.com/en-
us/games/eyepet-ps3/
EyePet is a game for PlayStation 3 that allows
players to create, customize and care for their
own virtual screen-oriented pet using motion
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controls.
Laser Pegs 8-
in-1 Sports
Car Building
Set
Producer: Laser Pegs (2013)
Ages: 5-8
http://www.laserpegs.com/shop/kits/power-
block-sports-car/
This building set contains physical bricks that
are compatible with LEGO sets and can be used
to build different car models, which can be lit
up using special bricks.
Angry Birds
Indoor and
Outdoor 3D
Action Game
Producer: University Games (2012)
Ages: 5-15
http://www.ugames.com/university_games/Ang
ryBirdsActionGame.asp
This is a physical version of the popular mobile
game, in which players can score by slinging
birds at a wooden construction containing pigs.
Sphero - App
Controlled
Robotic Ball
Producer: Orbotix (2012: v1.0 and 2013: v2.0)
Ages: All ages
http://www.gosphero.com
http://www.gosphero.com/sphero-2-0/
Sphero is a robotic ball, designed to work with
a mobile device, that can be used to play a
variety of games.
Ubooly -
pink, new
model
Producer: Ubooly (2003)
Ages: 3-9
http://www.ubooly.com
Ubooly is a plush toy designed to fit a mobile
device, combined with a free app to encourage
kids to pretend, explore, run, jump, dance and
be imaginative in the real world.
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