2002 International Conference on

Interaction Design & ChildrenFerry den Dopper

Highlights from

1. Children as our technology design partners (Druin)

2. Some more about storytelling (Cassell, Sundholm, Dahlbäck)

3. Participatory Design with children (Read et al.)

4. Designing with ‘difficult’ children (Gibson, Gregor, Milne)

5. Usability testing with children (Markopoulos, Bekker)

6. Measuring children’s fun (Read et al.)

My Conference Highlights

Children as our technology design partnersThe surprising and the not-so-surprising

As we design (for children), we can be led in directions we never expected…

…yet we can be led to placeswe have been a million times.

Children as our technology design partnersThe surprising and the not-so-surprising

• Children want to tell stories*, creatively express who they are and physically explore their world.

• What is important to children? Emotions.• Kids love storytelling* and magic.• Keep the low-tech with the high-tech.

* Through storytelling children learn to express themselves and make sense of the external world. Through collaboration children can negotiate their interpretations with others. Construction is an activity of negotiation that starts in early childhood and characterizes the whole of human life. (Bruner, 1996)

Children as our technology design partnersThe surprising and the not-so-surprising

How to give children a voice in the design process

© A. Druin- The Role of Children in the Design of New Technology- Behaviour and Information Technology

user

tester

informant

design partner

Underlying dimensions of each role

Relationship to developers

Relationship to technology

Goals for inquiry

Children as our technology design partnersThe surprising and the not-so-surprising

indirect feedback dialogue elaboration

idea prototypes product

developingtheory

questioningimpact of

technology

betterusability /

design

UserIf you need a limitedrelationship with children.

TesterIf you have multiple goalsfor inquiry.

InformantIf you need a flexiblerelationship throughout thelife cycle and to explore ideas.

Design partnerIf you need a flexiblerelationship throughout thelife cycle and to explore ideas.

Children as our technology design partnersThe surprising and the not-so-surprising

Cooperative Inquiry / Design

Method: for adults and childrenGoal: idea elaboration / set expectations

(including brainstorm)

Don’t stick with asking and listening to children, but share ideas. Children tell more if you talk back and think along.

Method rules:• No hand raising• Use first names• Wear informal clothing• The lab environment

should be informal

• All team members are paid

• Toys in the room• Your head is not higher

than them

Children as our technology design partnersThe surprising and the not-so-surprising

Cooperative Inquiry / Design

How?• Sticky note session

(3 ideas what we like and 3 we don’t like)• Low-tech prototyping

(tinkering with cardboard, plastic etc.)• Children videotaping

Why children as cameraman?– Their perspective;– Other children are at ease.

The size of the group is essential:• The optimal group size is the age of the children;• Assign more than one adult to the group,

otherwise the adult will become ‘the teacher’.

Video taping

Children (people) explicitly respond to camera presence. Still, we can benefit from using video as design material.

Video is used for documenting:• User trials• Test scenarios• Workshops

How can the video camera act as a mean of communication between designers and children?

The camera provokes responses, action and behaviour which explicate tacit knowledge.

Allison Druin experienced that Children, exposed to a camera, either tend to ‘perform’ or to ‘freeze’.

Storytelling

“Children tell more sophisticated stories to/with peers, than with adults.” - Justine Cassel, MIT

Project: Digital Cuddly Toy Museum GuidesCuddly robots tell stories about the paintings you pass by.

Purpose: more enjoyable and meaningful experienceAlso a suitable concept for internet?

IBF Participatory Continuum Model

Informant design: Role of domain expert is limited to informing the design experts, who realise the design.

Balanced design: Equal partnership between informing and realising the ideas.

Facilitated design: Emphasis onto the domain expert both to initiate ideas and to take the lead in realising the design, with the design experts being in a

facilitating role.

Participatory design with childrenInformant, Balanced and Facilitated Design

InformantDesign

FacilitatedDesign

BalancedDesign

0% Percentage contribution to design 100% by the domain experts

Participatory design with childrenInformant, Balanced and Facilitated design

Variables that affect the IBF model:

• Environment– Cultural (e.g. organizational culture & structure)

– Physical (e.g. room, access to equipment, seating arrangements, sizes of furniture)

• Knowledge– General– Subject– Technical

• Skills– Cognitive– Motor– Articularly

• Security– Comfort– Stress– Group

In an educational environment, adults are in charge informant design

If non-expert adults (i.e. parents) participate, children are empowered as they gain knowledge facilitated design

Designing with ‘difficult’ children

When selecting children to participate in a design process, children labeled as ‘difficult’ are often avoided.

What are ‘difficult’ children?Children that need to be supervised more carefully, varying from slightly

naughty to having severe behavioural problems.

Why select disaffected children as well?• To ensure a fairer and more representative group of child participants;

This is especially important when designing software that all children will be using in school (e.g.). In such cases, you don’t want to lose out on their very valuable input;

• These children don’t always mean to be disruptive, but miss the social skills to contribute to a discussion.

Children have fantastic imagination and an enormous potential to “think outside the box” to produce a truly innovative design. However, children are also hindered by a strong sense of what the adult wants.

When sending them off to the (external) designers, the teacher usually encourages the pupils to be well behaved and sensible.

For children, being sensible and being a little silly (“thinking out of the box”) are two very different things.

The integration of ‘difficult’ children means that there are children within the group that are not interested in saying what they think adults want to hear.

Designing with ‘difficult’ children

Designing with ‘difficult’ children

It is the ‘difficult’ children who facilitate the group in becoming more innovative, because they test their boundaries and test how the adult will let them go. (They were surprised not to be told off.)

• What can be perceived as disruptive behaviour can actually result in a wide variety in ‘wacky’ ideas.

• The ‘difficult’ children were very perceptive at what would eventually become a usability issue.

• When you suggest these are good ideas, the group immediately adopts this approach as the norm.

Designing with ‘difficult’ children

Interviews / QuestionnairesSignificant research into computerbased interviewing shows that people are

generally more open and honest when answering questions on a computer. In particular, people disclose more sensitive information to a computer.

This is because a computer:• is less judgemental, • responses without social/emotional answers and • is believed to know less about the respondent than a human interviewer.

In electronic questionnaires, avoid constructions like “If your answer is ‘no’, go to question 12”. This way the user doesn’t know if he’s giving the ‘right’ answer.

Children don’t fill out a questionnaire for fun, but for the teacher. So reward them with a game afterwards.

Designing with ‘difficult’ children

Conclusive:When you want to be innovative, you usually have to break the

rules.

Children have followed rules shorter than adults, so they are fresher.And ‘difficult’ children are also more bound to breaking rules.

If you work with a group, the ideas are often those of the dominant childs. Individual children are also innovative. On the other hand, shy and insecure children are shown by other kids that it is okay to be wacky, to say something.

Usability testing with children

Consider:• Put microphones close to the children;• Make smaller tasks than for adults;• Younger than 8? Stay in the room;• Look for signs of engagement or boredom;• Allow to think aloud.

Measure:• Usability problems uncovered;• Times children ask facilitator for explanation;• Times children look explicitly at the facilitator;• Times one child copies the answer of the other child;• Times one child asserts himself on the other child;• Expressions of frustrations;• Expressions of pleasure.

Fun:• Frustration indicates a usability problem;• In games, some frustration may be caused by challenge;• Challenge is necessary for pleasure in using a game.

Goals:• Children have shorter attention span;• Children are less able to plan;• Easy short-term goals shift children’s attention away from long-term goals.

Co-discovery:• Verbal information is very useful for designers;• Verbal information appears with co-operation;• Young children work alone during co-discovery.

Usability testing with children

Measuring children’s fun

Usability: measured in ‘user satisfaction’, ‘system effectiveness’ and ‘systems efficiency’

Children’s motivations are different, they have different desires and expectations. ‘User satisfaction’ doesn’t fit children.

‘Fun’ is a better experience to consider.

Fun is not a usability metric.Fun may be a product requirement and a user experience.In this respect fun is a parallel feature to usability.

The dimensions of ‘fun’:• Expectations• Engagement• Endurability

Measuring children’s fun

Expectations

Best Worst

Worked the best D B A C

Liked the most A D B C

Most fun D A B C

Easiest to do A

The Smiley-o-meter

The Fun-sorter

The Fun-o-meter

Measuring children’s fun

EngagementObserve the children:– positive: smiling, laughing, bouncing, concentrated

(e.g. tongue out)– negative: frowning, bored (e.g. yawning, fiddling)

Endurability– Remembrance

We are likely to remember things we enjoyed.

– ReturnanceThe Again-again table

Yes Maybe No

Visit U-boat X

Puppet show X

…

Would you like to do it again?

Measuring children’s fun

Findings:• Don’t present a row of fun-o-meters or smiley-o-meters (especially

to young children), because children don’t want to discriminate;• You don’t need a fun-o-meter and a smiley-o-meter;• You usually don’t need a fun-sorter and an again-again table;• The tools can be used beforehand (expectations) and afterwards

(actual).