| Reempowering powerful ideas: designers' mission in the age of ubiquitous technology | | BIBA | Full-Text | 1-4 | |
| Paulo Blikstein | |||
| The project of universal, high-quality education is a new human endeavor. Not many decades ago, the mainstream view was that only a small elite required advanced education, and vocational training would suffice for everyone else. The need to educate all students in very different disciplines -- many of them quite complex and advanced -- is generating demands that the extant educational system cannot meet. Technology has been touted as one answer to these new demands, but has failed so far to escape a century-old cycle of inflated expectations. Our mission as designers of interactive technologies and environments is crucial to move out of this cycle, but it will require our community to make a convincing argument that technologies in education are not simply delivery media, but artifacts that extend human cognition in multiple ways. The adaptivity of computational media enables an acknowledgement of epistemological diversity which enables students to concretize their ideas and projects with motivation and engagement. Thus, the goal of providing rich educational experiences for all students will depend upon our ability to design devices, environments, and activities that are accepting of children's multiple epistemological resources and heuristics. | |||
| The relations between play and learning in digital environments: the significance of motives and demands | | BIBA | Full-Text | 5-6 | |
| Marilyn Fleer | |||
| Although a great deal has been written about children's play, less attention
has been directed to the relations between play and learning in digital
environment (e.g. Falloon, 2013; Kennewell and Morgan, 2006). What we do know
is that much of the research into play and learning in the early years has been
conceptualized from a maturational point of view (e.g. Roopnarine, 2011) and
this view of development appears to also underpin the design process in digital
contexts (e.g Giest, 2012; Parette, Quesenberry and Blum, 2010), even though
other perspectives are being introduced (e.g. Iversen and Brodesen, 2008). What
has dominated the longstanding theories of play has been a theory of
development that focuses on predetermined stages or milestones. Central to this
conceptualization of development has been the age of the child. That is, age
determines what kind of play might be expected or what might develop. In this
reading, age determines when and how children play (e.g. object play, solitary
play, parallel play, fantasy play, see Pellegrini, 2011 for an overview). Much
of this thinking tends to consider play and development as universal, intrinsic
to the child, biologically deterministic, and unfolding in predictable ways.
But what has been absent from these theories of development is how play and
learning are related within digital environments.
It is argued in this presentation that theories of play and development that are conceptualised in relation to milestones are not helpful for understanding how new settings such as digitally interactive environments afford new ways of playing and learning. What we know is that the virtual play of young children appears to invite a new kind of play (e.g. AlbinClark, Howard and Anderson, 2011; Marsh, 2010; Singer and Singer, 2005), creating new demands upon children, and developing new motives that need to be better understood. What is not known is how digital contexts actually create these demands on children's play and learning in everyday preschool settings and what this affords for children's development. To capture the demands and motives for play and learning in these simultaneously virtual and concrete settings, I draw upon cultural-historical theory as first introduced by Vygotsky. | |||
| Interpreting data from within: supporting human-data interaction in museum exhibits through perspective taking | | BIBA | Full-Text | 7-16 | |
| Jessica Roberts; Leilah Lyons; Francesco Cafaro; Rebecca Eydt | |||
| As data rather than physical artifacts become more commonly the product of modern scientific endeavor, we must attend to human-data interactions as people reason about and with representations of data increasingly being presented in museum settings. Complex data sets can be impenetrable for novices, so the exhibit presented here was designed to give visitors control over a personalized "slice" of the data set as an entry point for exploration. Personalized control and collaboration can often be at odds in exhibits, however. This paper presents a study of two alternate approaches to designing an embodied interaction control for the exhibit that serves both needs. The results demonstrate that interaction design can affect children's perspective taking as they interact with a Census data map museum display, and that the perspective taken by individuals is correlated with their operation of the interactive exhibit and the kinds of reasoning they employ while investigating data. | |||
| Designing and evaluating touchless playful interaction for ASD children | | BIBA | Full-Text | 17-26 | |
| Laura Bartoli; Franca Garzotto; Mirko Gelsomini; Luigi Oliveto; Matteo Valoriani | |||
| Limited studies exist that explore motion-based touchless applications for children with ASD (Autism Spectrum Disorder) and investigate their design issues and the benefits they can bring to this target group. The paper reports a structured set of design guidelines that distill our experience gained from empirical studies and collaborations with therapeutic centers. These heuristics informed the design of three touchless games that were evaluated in a controlled study involving medium functioning ASD children at a therapeutic center. Our findings confirm the potential of motion-based touchless applications games for technology-enhanced interventions for this target group. | |||
| "Child as the measure of all things": the body as a referent in designing a museum exhibit to understand the nanoscale | | BIBA | Full-Text | 27-36 | |
| Joan MoraGuiard; Narcis Pares | |||
| The nanoscale, despite being something "present" in our everyday life, is actually an abstract concept given the impossibility of having a direct perception of it. This article presents the design process and analysis of an interactive exhibit called "NanoZoom" for a temporary exhibition for the science museum of Barcelona. The goal of the exhibit was to help users understand how small objects are in the nanoscale by designing a fullbody interactive experience. The hypothesis behind the design of the system was based on the idea that our body is our constant referent to allow us to understand issues of scale, proportions, distances, etc. Hence, taking the body of the user as a referent should help users better understand how small objects in the nanoscale are. The approach was based on a contemporary view on the Vitruvian Man in fullbody interaction; i.e. based on modern theories that claim that embodied interaction can foster a better learning of our environment. Experimental assessment was carried out with 64 children, comparing the fullbody interactive experience with a desktop adaptation of it. Results showed better performance on children's memorability and classification of objects (ranging from the size of centimeters to the nanoscale) for those who used the fullbody experience with respect to those in the desktop system. | |||
| Emergent dialogue: eliciting values during children's collaboration with a tabletop game for change | | BIBA | Full-Text | 37-46 | |
| Alissa N. Antle; Jillian L. Warren; Aaron May; Min Fan; Alyssa F. Wise | |||
| Games for Change (G4C) is a movement and community of practice dedicated to using digital games for social change. However, a common model of persuasion built into most G4C, called Information Deficit, assumes that supporting children to learn facts will result in behavior change around social issues. There is little evidence that this approach works. We propose a model of game play, called Emergent Dialogue, which encourages children to discuss their values during interaction with factual information in a G4C. We summarize a set of guidelines based on our Emergent Dialogue model and apply them to the design of Youtopia, a tangible, tabletop learning game about sustainability. Our goal was to create a game that provided opportunities for children to express and discuss their values around sustainable development tradeoffs during game play. We evaluate our design using video, survey and questionnaire data. Our results provide evidence that our model and design guidelines are effective for supporting value-based dialogue during collaborative game play. | |||
| Designing digital peer support for children: design patterns for social interaction | | BIBA | Full-Text | 47-56 | |
| Susanne Lindberg; Pontus Wärnestål; Jens Nygren; Petra Svedberg | |||
| Children who have survived a life-threatening disease like cancer benefit from social support from other children with a similar background. However, these children are often geographically dispersed and have little opportunity to meet. We investigate the design and development of Digital Peer Support Services (DPS), which may overcome this problem. Peer support is a kind of social support that brings together peers with similar experiences to help their adjustment to a disease. The aim of this paper is to develop design patterns for social interaction that can be implemented in a DPS for children surviving cancer. We conducted four sets of design workshops with children, from which emerged clusters relating to peer support and friendship that were broken down into triads. From these, six design patterns for social interaction were developed. The patterns delineate different aspects of social interaction for children and are illustrated with examples from DPS prototypes and concepts. The patterns are organized into a hierarchy, comprising the beginning of a design pattern language for social interaction for children. An essential aspect of the patterns is providing users with transparency and control of the extent to which their social interaction is public or private. | |||
| Investigating interaction with tabletops in kindergarten environments | | BIBA | Full-Text | 57-66 | |
| Dietrich Kammer; René Dang; Juliane Steinhauf; Rainer Groh | |||
| In this paper, we investigate interaction of children with interactive tabletops in kindergarten environments. In our understanding, such environments feature a certain degree of supervision, group play, as well as sole activities. In contrast to the traditional desktop PC workplace, interactive tabletops encourage communication and social interaction between children. In order to observe interaction and collaboration, we developed a suite of playful applications called VisMo, which we tailored to the needs and expectations of the target group. Our observational study with twelve Kindergarten children highlights pedagogical and usability aspects. We observed motivation and collaboration of the children and used a formal notation to transcribe their performed multitouch gestures. | |||
| Exploring physical and digital identity with a teenage cohort | | BIBA | Full-Text | 67-76 | |
| Lia Emanuel; Danaë Stanton Fraser | |||
| The way we develop, use and visualize identity is rapidly evolving as research moves towards the capability to accurately link our digital and physical identities. With teenagers at the forefront of this hyper-connected world, this paper uses a systematic approach to contribute an in-depth understanding of teenagers' attitudes, values and concerns on privacy and identity information when considering both online and offline spaces. Using participatory design methods, we present three interactive workshops examining participant's perception of how their own online identities translated to the physical world, and the values and social considerations they hold around new or near-future identification techniques. We discuss how our deeper understanding of this age group's attitudes, values and concerns can be applied to designing socially acceptable identification technology and effective education on privacy and identity management among teens. | |||
| Sparkles of brilliance: incorporating cultural and social context in codesign of digital artworks | | BIBA | Full-Text | 77-84 | |
| Foad Hamidi; Karla Saenz; Melanie Baljko | |||
| Digital media have great potential as tools for self-expression and artistic exploration. We seek to enrich the discussion of challenges and benefits associated with using digital design methods and materials with children in developing countries through a case study. Our contributions to this discussion are based on our involvement in facilitating a two-day codesign workshop with 25 marginalized children in Oaxaca, Mexico. Together, we explored, designed and implemented digitally augmented paper artifacts based on traditional folk art from the children's native region. We analyzed the artworks and observed the children during the workshop to inform our research. Lessons learned include the importance of establishing trust though local contacts, incorporating relevant cultural and social elements, planning concrete outcomes and using technology appropriately. We hope that this detailed case study may serve as an exemplar, by providing insights and inspiration for other designers, researchers, and developers when planning, carrying out, and studying workshops. | |||
| Participatory design strategies to enhance the creative contribution of children with special needs | | BIBA | Full-Text | 85-94 | |
| Laura Malinverni; Joan MoraGuiard; Vanesa Padillo; MariaAngeles Mairena; Amaia Hervás; Narcis Pares | |||
| In recent years there has been an increasing awareness about the importance of involving children with special needs in the process of designing technology. Starting from this perspective, the paper presents the participatory design process carried out with children with autistic spectrum disorder for the design of a Kinect motion-based game aimed at fostering social initiation skills. By describing the strategies used for the design of the activities, we will suggest possible approaches aimed toward widening the space for contributions of children and including them at a more creative level. Within that, major emphasis will be dedicated to discussing the "empowering dimension" of participatory design activities as an instrument to enhance benefits both for design results and for the children themselves. Finally, the balance between structure and freedom in the design of the activities will be discussed. | |||
| Play it our way: customization of game rules in children's interactive outdoor games | | BIBA | Full-Text | 95-104 | |
| Tetske Avontuur; Rian de Jong; Eveline Brink; Yves Florack; Iris Soute; Panos Markopoulos | |||
| In traditional outdoor games, such as tag and hide-and-seek, children play in groups, and typically changes to the rules are negotiated fluidly, without disrupting the game flow. In contrast, games that are supported by interactive technology are usually rather static, not allowing for easy adaption towards the children's narrative and desired rules. We present an iterative design process in which 65 children aged 5-12 participated in different iterations, concluding with the design of GameBaker. GameBaker is an application that allows children to modify game rules for Head Up Games, outdoor collocated games supported by interactive handheld devices. We show how children: understand how setting different game rules allows them to modify the game, are able to relate these to how the game is played, and enjoy doing so. This research paves the way towards allowing children to take control of outdoor game technology, to create their own variation of games as they have done for centuries in traditional games. | |||
| Giving ideas an equal chance: inclusion and representation in participatory design with children | | BIBA | Full-Text | 105-114 | |
| Janet C. Read; Daniel Fitton; Matthew Hortton | |||
| 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 full-informed involvement of children. | |||
| Incorporating peephole interactions into children's second language learning activities on mobile devices | | BIBA | Full-Text | 115-124 | |
| Brenna McNally; Mona Leigh Guha; Leyla Norooz; Emily Rhodes; Leah Findlater | |||
| Physical movement has the potential to enhance learning activities. To investigate how movement can be incorporated into children's mobile language learning, we designed and evaluated two versions of a German vocabulary game called Scenic Words. The first version used movement-based dynamic peephole navigation, which requires physical movement of the arms, while the second version used touch-based static peephole navigation, which only requires standard touchscreen interactions; static peepholes are the status quo interaction technique for navigation, commonly found, for example, in map applications and games. To compare the two types of navigation and to assess children's reactions to dynamic peepholes, we conducted an in-home study with 16 children (ages 8-9). The children participated in pairs but individually played each version of the game on a mobile device. While results showed that the more familiar static peepholes were the preferred interaction style overall, participants became accustomed to the movement-based dynamic peepholes during the study. Participants noted that the dynamic peephole interaction became easier over time, and that it had some advantages such as for dragging-and-dropping elements in the game. | |||
| Search result visualization with characters for children | | BIBA | Full-Text | 125-134 | |
| Tatiana Gossen; Rene Müller; Sebastian Stober; Andreas Nürnberger | |||
| In this paper, we explore alternative ways to visualize search results for children. We propose a novel search result visualization using characters. The main idea is to represent each web document as a character where a character visually provides clues about the webpage's content. We focused on children between six and twelve as a target user group. Following the user-centered development approach, we conducted a preliminary user study to determine how children would represent a webpage as a sketch based on a given template of a character. Using the study results the first prototype of a search engine was developed. We evaluated the search interface on a touchpad and a touch table in a second user study and analyzed user's satisfaction and preferences. | |||
| A diary study of children's user experience with EBooks using flow theory as framework | | BIBA | Full-Text | 135-144 | |
| Luca Colombo; Monica Landoni | |||
| This paper describes a diary study aimed at evaluating the User Experience (UX) of 7 to 12 years old children when interacting with eBooks. The goal was to understand whether, in a context of leisure reading, enhanced eBooks provide a better reading experience than basic eBooks. We took inspiration from Csikszentmihalyi's Flow theory to define a benchmark for evaluating the reading experience, and then by means of the Experience Sampling Method (ESM) and an adapted version of the Flow Short Scale (FKS) we investigated and collected data on the reading experience of two groups of children: one group read an enhanced eBook while the other read a basic version of the same eBook. Following a mixed-method approach, with quantitative analysis we verified whether participants who read the enhanced eBook had a better reading experience, while with qualitative analysis we tried to understand why. The results showed that interactive and multimedia enrichments (read-aloud narration in particular) had a positive effect on children's experience with the enhanced eBook. | |||
| Waiting for learning: designing interactive education materials for patient waiting areas | | BIBA | Full-Text | 145-153 | |
| Zeina Atrash Leong; Michael S. Horn | |||
| We describe the research and design of educational media for children in
doctor's office waiting areas. Even though technology use for medical purposes
has become increasingly prominent for doctors, administration, and patients,
research on the use of interactive technology for health education is limited.
In this project, we focus on clinics for Sickle Cell Disease treatment. These
clinics treat patients of various ages and disease severity, but all patients
make frequent, recurring visits for treatments and checkups. We describe our
current research to better understand the behaviors and activities of patients
as they wait in the clinic, their expectations and understandings of Sickle
Cell Disease and its treatment, the educational material currently available,
and our preliminary methods for developing interactive technologies for these
environments. This research includes observations in pediatric clinic waiting
areas, interviews with clinic staff, and preliminary user testing with our
interactive designs.
This paper details our observations of waiting areas in two sickle cell clinics. We discuss our findings and their implications for design. We also describe the design of an augmented reality tablet application that we placed in the waiting area for user testing. We use this study to discuss further design iterations and directions for future work. | |||
| "It helped me do my science.": a case of designing social media technologies for children in science learning | | BIBA | Full-Text | 155-164 | |
| Jason Yip; June Ahn; Tamara Clegg; Elizabeth Bonsignore; Daniel Pauw; Michael Gubbels | |||
| In this paper, we present the design evolution of two social media (SM) tools: Scientific INQuiry (SINQ), which transformed into ScienceKit. We detail our motivations for using SM tools in science learning and the design decisions we made over a 2-year, design-based research project. Our designs grew from our experiences using SM tools in the field and co-designing these systems with children. Our longitudinal case study and design narrative contribute to our understanding of the design and use of SM tools to support children's scientific inquiry. Specifically, we detail (1) the affordances and constraints we gleaned from the design evolution of SINQ to ScienceKit, (2) the potential of SM to guide learning behaviors, and (3) the role of SM for children and the community of adults and peers who support them. | |||
| Fiabot!: design and evaluation of a mobile storytelling application for schools | | BIBA | Full-Text | 165-174 | |
| Elisa Rubegni; Monica Landoni | |||
| This paper contributes to the ongoing debate about how digital technology can be integrated into the formal education system. Within a longitudinal research study, which lasted four years, we conducted an investigation on how mobile technology can support educational activities as defined by a school curriculum. Among the topics included in the school curriculum, we focused on the literary field and developed a Digital StoryTelling (DST) application, Fiabot!, to support this activity. Here, we describe the design of the application and how we evaluated its impact on educational activities. The application was designed and evaluated in two primary schools. The study had the objectives of exploring whether Fiabot! supports children in achieving educational objectives defined by the curriculum, how this effectively supports teachers, and to what extent children like using it for the creation and sharing of their stories. Our findings show that the application has a positive impact on curriculum enactment and effectively supports the related educational activities. Overall, Fiabot! was demonstrated to be very effective in stimulating children's discussion of a story's plot and characters. Thus, Fiabot! supported children not only in being creative but also in organizing their work and exploring a digital media opportunity. This resulted in the development of new skills and the better grounding of previously acquired knowledge, while teachers also had the opportunity to expand their teaching skills and get a taste of ICT's potential in education. | |||
| Shake up the schoolyard: iterative design research for public playful installations | | BIBA | Full-Text | 175-183 | |
| Rob Tieben; Linda de Valk; Pepijn Rijnbout; Tilde Bekker; Ben Schouten | |||
| Three different design research topics are presented in this article: how to design social and active play for teenagers, how to design for open-ended and emergent play, and how to evaluate interactive playful installations in situ. The Wiggle the Eye installation, five interactive wiggle benches and a central lamp, was iteratively developed and evaluated with more than 1000 users, at two high schools, one university and a design festival. The installation succeeded in inviting teenagers to play in a social way, yet the interaction design proved challenging: uncoordinated mass usage and a variety of external factors influenced the exploration and discovery process for the users. The presented insights serve as advice for everyone designing for teenagers, public spaces or playful interactions. | |||
| CamQuest: design and evaluation of a tablet application for educational use in preschools | | BIBA | Full-Text | 185-188 | |
| Jennie Berggren; Catherine Hedler | |||
| This paper describes the design, testing and evaluation of CamQuest, a tablet application intended for educational practice in preschools. CamQuest enables children to search for and photograph geometrical shapes in their surroundings with the tablet camera. In this paper, the results of three encounters with preschool children aged four to five are presented and discussed, as well as the design and concept of CamQuest. Each encounter with children was carried out with a different approach; testing, co-designing, and evaluating. The application can be used as a pedagogical tool, which enables preschool children to recognize and explore geometrical shapes in their environment through using digital media. | |||
| Connecting children to nature with technology: sowing the seeds for pro-environmental behaviour | | BIBA | Full-Text | 189-192 | |
| Bronwyn J. Cumbo; Jeni Paay; Jesper Kjeldskov; Brent C. Jacobs | |||
| Regular interactions with nature are vital for the development and wellbeing of children and also to build attachment and value for natural environments that potentially promote pro-environmental behaviour in later life. In this paper, we report on a study designed to identify opportunities for digital technology to support children's connectedness to the natural environment, thereby encouraging positive environmental attitudes in children, as well as healthy physical play. Through participatory engagement with a group of 15 Danish children (aged 8-12) and their parents, using focus groups and follow up interviews, we explore what motivates children to undertake everyday recreational activities, focusing on activities undertaken in nature, and how these interactions influence meaning associated with their local natural place. The contribution of this paper is a deeper understanding of what motivates children to interact with nature, and a discussion of how technology may enhance this interaction. | |||
| Connected messages: a maker approach to interactive community murals with youth | | BIBA | Full-Text | 193-196 | |
| Orkan Telhan; Yasmin B. Kafai; Richard Lee Davis; KFai Steele; Barrie M. Adleberg | |||
| Connected Messages brings together traditions of engaging youth in designing interactive murals with themes relevant to their lives and new low-cost networking technologies of connecting local groups with global audiences. We describe the design of a community mural that functions like a public display, which can be remotely programmed through an online interface. The implementation with Maker Mentors in five Free Library branches with over 1,000 youth focused on different aspects of youth maker agency in accessing, participating, and expressing their ideas. In the discussion, we review key dimensions expanding youth and Maker Mentor participation in community-relevant designs. | |||
| Design and evaluation of interactive musical fruit | | BIBA | Full-Text | 197-200 | |
| Cumhur Erkut; Stefania Serafin; Jonas Fehr; Henrique M. R. Fernandes Figueira; Theis B. Hansen; Nicholas J. Kirwan; Mariam R. Zakarian | |||
| In this paper we describe the design and evaluation of a novel, tangible user interface for interaction with sound, to be implemented in a museum setting. Our work-in-progress is part of a larger concept for an installation prioritizing a collaborative, explorative, multimodal experience. Focus has been centered on novice children, in order to accommodate all potential users of the museum, and to minimize the risk of excluding users based on skill or previous musical knowhow. We have developed four instances of a multimodal device for interacting with sounds via a tangible interface, and called them Interactive Musical Fruits (IMFs). The IMF consists of an embedded processing system, which can detect its orientation. Qualitative testing with children has been performed, to better evaluate the current design state. Positive feedback from the test subjects upholds the validity and the potential of the IMF as an interface in a museum context. However, further research is required to improve the interactive and collaborative aspects of the device, as well as the aural and visual properties of the IMF. | |||
| Understanding child-defined gestures and children's mental models for touchscreen tabletop interaction | | BIBA | Full-Text | 201-204 | |
| Karen Rust; Meethu Malu; Lisa Anthony; Leah Findlater | |||
| Creating a predefined set of touchscreen gestures that caters to all users and age groups is difficult. To inform the design of intuitive and easy to use gestures specifically for children, we adapted a user-defined gesture study by Wobbrock et al. [12] that had been designed for adults. We then compared gestures created on an interactive tabletop by 12 children and 14 adults. Our study indicates that previous touchscreen experience strongly influences the gestures created by both groups; that adults and children create similar gestures; and that the adaptations we made allowed us to successfully elicit user-defined gestures from both children and adults. These findings will aid designers in better supporting touchscreen gestures for children, and provide a basis for further user-defined gesture studies with children. | |||
| Jigsaw together: a distributed collaborative game for players with diverse skills and preferences | | BIBA | Full-Text | 205-208 | |
| Dimitris Grammenos; Antonis Chatziantoniou | |||
| Presently it is very hard (or even impossible) to allow multiple players with highly diverse characteristics (including age, skills, and preferences) to collaboratively share and play a single jigsaw puzzle. Towards this end, the work presented in this paper aims to expand the capabilities of digital jigsaw puzzles in 3 directions: (a) multi-playability by a large number of players; (b) accessibility by people with hand-motor and visual impairments; and (c) concurrent playability by people with highly diverse characteristics. In this context, we present an electronic puzzle game which supports single player as well as distributed multiplayer sessions by people with diverse characteristics. The paper introduces the background against which the work is based and describes the key design features of the resulting game's user interface and gameplay. | |||
| ChiroBot: modular-robotic manipulation via spatial hand gestures | | BIBA | Full-Text | 209-212 | |
| Jasjeet Singh Seehra; Ansh Verma; Karthik Ramani | |||
| We introduce ChiroBot, a cyber-physical construction kit that allows users to create custom robots out of craft material, easily assemble the robots using joint modules and control them using hand gestures. These handcrafted robots are assembled using our modules packaged with actuator, wireless communication and controller electronics. These modules eliminate the need for expertise in electronics and enable a plug and play system that directly encourages users to explore by quick prototyping. We designed a glove embedded with sensors to enable the user to control the robots using hand gestures. We present different usage scenarios to demonstrate the system's versatility such as vehicular robot, humanoid puppet, robotic arm, and other combinations. This paper describes the ChiroBot system, interaction methods, few sample creations, and proposes possible "play value". | |||
| Affective communication aid using wearable devices based on biosignals | | BIBA | Full-Text | 213-216 | |
| Yuji Takano; Kenji Suzuki | |||
| We propose a novel wearable interface for sharing facial expressions between children with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) and their parents, therapists, and caregivers. The developed interface is capable of recognizing facial expressions based on physiological signal patterns taken from facial bioelectrical signals and displaying the results in real time. The physiological signals are measured from the forehead and both sides of the head. We verified that the proposed classification method is robust against facial movements, blinking, and the head posture. This compact interface can support the perception of facial expressions between children with ASD and others to help improve their communication. | |||
| Screen time for children | | BIBA | Full-Text | 217-220 | |
| Steven LeMay; Terry Costantino; Sheilah O'Connor; Eda ContePitcher | |||
| When setting out to redevelop its online offerings for children, The Toronto Public Library needed to establish a position on the controversial issue of screen time for children. Given the concerns about the appropriateness, benefits and potential harms of screen time for young children, the question of what if anything the library should be providing online for children aged 5 years and under needed to be answered. This paper examines how an answer to this key question was achieved and the implications of this decision for the design of online services for children. | |||
| Power puppet: science and technology education through puppet building | | BIBA | Full-Text | 221-224 | |
| Firaz Peer; Michael Nitsche; Lauren Schaffer | |||
| In this paper, we describe our approach to designing electronic puppet-building workshops for middle to early high school students. Power Puppet uses traditional puppet building materials paper and cloth as the main resources, together with simple circuits elements such as LED's, batteries and magnets. We document our process of designing puppet-building workshops that include STEM education criteria. We collaborated with the Center for Puppetry Arts to design these workshops in such a way that part of the making will include basic electronic input and output components. We aim to open this tradition up for larger audiences to enhance hardware CS education in STEM fields. | |||
| Motivating children's initiations with novelty and surprise: initial design recommendations for autism | | BIBA | Full-Text | 225-228 | |
| Alyssa M. Alcorn; Helen Pain; Judith Good | |||
| Data from the ECHOES virtual environment (VE) suggests that young children with autism spectrum conditions (ASC) may be motivated to initiate repeatedly and positively about novelty and expectation-violations (i.e. discrepancies) in a VE. This is of interest because initiating communication is developmentally important but difficult to encourage -- it must be unprompted in order to "count". Also, the ASC literature would predict that discrepancies should be distressing, not motivating. Based on this unexpected but positive finding, we are exploring the possibility of embedding discrepancies into VEs to support children's initiation practice. As a first step, we propose 6 empirically-derived design principles for including discrepancies as motivators, while still maintaining the VE's overall integrity. | |||
| MakeScape lite: a prototype learning environment for making and design | | BIBA | Full-Text | 229-232 | |
| Brian A. Danielak; Adam Mechtley; Matthew Berland; Leilah Lyons; Rebecca Eydt | |||
| We describe the development and user testing of an iPad prototype for a new museum-based, interactive tabletop computer game called MakeScape Lite. The game lets learners -- who have no prior formal experience in circuitry -- build virtual circuits in a fantasy challenge scenario to (1) learn some basic circuitry concepts and (2) engage in basic engineering practices, such as problem identification, design, and iteration. In phase 1 of testing, we explored how children socially interacted to develop design goals when the game lacked explicit guidance about what to do. In phase 2, which we discuss here, we iterated the prototype with partially worked examples to offer more explicit guidance to children. We then studied video and game log data of students play-testing the game. | |||
| StampOn in a museum: helping children's scientific inquiry | | BIBA | Full-Text | 233-236 | |
| Keita Muratsu; Ayako Ishiyama; Fusako Kusunoki; Shigenori Inagaki; Takao Terano | |||
| This study proposes a mobile support system "StampOn" to promote elementary school children' scientific inquiry into museum exhibits. The unique characteristic of StampOn is its use of a stamp-shaped interface to connect exhibits and mobile device content in an extremely simple way. In this paper, we first describe the principles and implementation of the StampOn system. Then, we evaluate the performance of the StampOn system at a various rock exhibitions. For the evaluation, 35 Japanese sixth-grade elementary school children (aged 11-12) used the StampOn system. We recorded the actions and utterances of one of them during their scientific inquiry process. To clarify the effectiveness of StampOn, we have analysed the following two factors in the scientific inquiry processes: 1) observing subjects attentively and 2) interpreting information obtained through the observation. Based on these analyses, we conclude that StampOn is effective to promote scientific inquiry among children. | |||
| Children as co-researchers: more than just a role-play | | BIBA | Full-Text | 237-240 | |
| Fenne van Doorn; Mathieu Gielen; Pieter Jan Stappers | |||
| Co-research is a method that engages participants in contextual user
research by giving them the role of researcher. This method aids to capture
their input in the fuzzy front end of the design process. A previous study [5]
showed that children can act as co-researchers to gather contextual knowledge.
In that study 20 children aged 9-12 interviewed their peers or their
grandparents. One of the findings from that study was that the professional
role of the co-researcher is a motivating and influencing factor, which we want
to enhance in a followup study. Another finding was that the way of reporting
(audio-recording and notes in a research booklet) could be improved.
In the present study 28 children (aged 9/10) acted as co-researchers by interviewing their peers. The goal of this study was to enhance the professional role of the children and to experiment with different recording devices, in order to explore the methodological consequences. Using co-research gives an opportunity to go to places that are less accessible to lead researchers, like the child's room, and looking at it through the children's perspective. Making a choice between audio recorders and video cameras depends on the research set up and topic, in this case video added a lot of context since we were interested in personal belongings and a tour though their bedroom. It was found that giving mobile phones to co-researchers in order to record their interviews is not advisable; the quality of the audio is not that good and switching between making pictures and explaining them on audio is hard for them. | |||
| Considering visual programming environments for documenting physical computing artifacts | | BIBA | Full-Text | 241-244 | |
| EvaSophie Katterfeldt; Heidi Schelhowe | |||
| In online communities makers share and give feedback on DIY projects. Such feedback could also help novices who get stuck in their projects. However, documenting work in progress is little considered in current tools. We therefore developed a How-To related web platform for documenting work in progress and studied how children (aged 13-18) used it to document their physical computing projects during workshops. The evaluation outcome questions the appropriateness of our web platform and reveals the benefits of visual programming environments for documenting physical computing artifacts. Suggestions are given how to extend visual programming environments into minimalistic documentation tools that provide ways for children to successfully share their work in progress with other makers. | |||
| A study of Auti: a socially assistive robotic toy | | BIBA | Full-Text | 245-248 | |
| Helen E. Andreae; Peter M. Andreae; Jason Low; Deidre Brown | |||
| This paper presents an evaluation of the effectiveness of a new socially-assistive robot, Auti, in encouraging physical and verbal interactions in children with autism. It aims to encourage positive play behaviors such as gentle speaking and touching, with positive reinforcement through movement responses, and to discourage challenging behaviors, such as screaming or hitting through the removal of the reinforcing movements. This study evaluates the design by comparing a fully-interactive Auti to an active-only version, which does the same movements but does not respond to the child. Results from 18 participants indicate that the Interactive Auti does encourage positive behaviors more than the Active-only version. However, further design is needed around addressing problematic behaviors. | |||
| Design with the deaf: do deaf children need their own approach when designing technology? | | BIBA | Full-Text | 249-252 | |
| Leigh Ellen Potter; Jessica Korte; Sue Nielsen | |||
| In this paper, we focus on the question of design of technology for Deaf children, and whether the needs of these children are different from their hearing counterparts in a technology design setting. We present findings from literature together with our own observations to determine if there are distinguishing characteristics for Deaf children that may influence design sessions with them. We found that Deaf children generally have reduced literacy and slower academic progress, reduced social and emotional development, reduced empathy and a level of nervousness in novel situations, delayed language development, and limited or delayed spoken language. We also found that Deaf children are active and innovative in approaching communication, have sensitive visual attention in their peripheral vision, enhanced attention to small visual changes, and a capacity for visual learning. Finally, cultural issues within the Deaf community mean that Deaf children should be free to interact on their own terms in a design situation. We suggest that these differences merit the development of a design approach specific to the needs of Deaf children. | |||
| Applying the CHECk tool to participatory design sessions with children | | BIBA | Full-Text | 253-256 | |
| Maarten Van Mechelen; Gavin Sim; Bieke Zaman; Peggy Gregory; Karin Slegers; Matthew Horton | |||
| To encourage ethical practices in participatory design with children the CHECk tool was created. This paper reports on an expert review of the CHECk tool and a validating case study. Four main challenges to the CHECk tool are identified: (1) how to inform children on the research and their role herein, (2) distinguishing between project values and designer or researcher's personal values, (3) accounting for the dynamic nature and social constructedness of values in design, and (4) the emergence of values in all stakeholders including child design partners. We advocate complementing CHECk with interactive storytelling and show how this narrative can be used to not only inform participation and achieve ethical symmetry, but also to negotiate values with child design partners. | |||
| Low-fidelity prototyping tablet applications for children | | BIBA | Full-Text | 257-260 | |
| Etienne Bertou; Suleman Shahid | |||
| Children are using computer technology at increasingly younger ages and have become a potential end-user group for tablet applications. The possibilities for incorporating this user group in the early design evaluation with prototyping are still being explored. We compared three low-fidelity prototyping approaches and concluded that one approach to low-fi prototyping was particularly more suitable for early design evaluation of tablet apps with 7-8 year olds. | |||
| An OWL in the classroom: development of an interactive storytelling application for preschoolers | | BIBA | Full-Text | 261-264 | |
| Iris Soute; Henk Nijmeijer | |||
| In research there is a considerable interest in developing interactive educational systems. However, the typical classroom remains a rather low-tech environment. Allowing teachers to create, adapt and share interactive learning applications might increase the uptake of technology in the classroom. In this paper a study is presented that explores the deployment of a robot-storytelling application for preschoolers, while simultaneously investigating the teacher's requirements for a toolkit to create stories for the robot. The results suggest that a robot-storytelling application can be a valuable addition to the classroom and that indeed a toolkit for creating stories would increase its usefulness in the curriculum. | |||
| KIKIWAKE: participatory design of language play game for children to promote creative activity-based on recognition of Japanese phonology | | BIBA | Full-Text | 265-268 | |
| Takahiro Nakadai; Tomoki Taguchi; Ryohei Egusa; Miki Namatame; Masanori Sugimoto; Fusako Kusunoki; Etsuji Yamaguchi; Shigenori Inagaki; Yoshiaki Takeda; Hiroshi Mizoguchi | |||
| This study proposes a system for supporting the Shotoku Taishi game, which is a language play game that uses the voice of children. The Shotoku Taishi game is a group game in which multiple people presenting a problem vocalize different words at the same time and the respondents are required to guess what the combination of the words is. The authors developed and implemented a system using a microphone array to extract the voice of a specific person presenting a problem in this game. The participants were 36 elementary school students whose native language was Japanese. The results showed that the participants were enjoying the Shotoku Taishi game and that this group activity was a creative activity that deepened their awareness of the Japanese language. | |||
| Exploring challenging group dynamics in participatory design with children | | BIBA | Full-Text | 269-272 | |
| Maarten Van Mechelen; Mathieu Gielen; Vero vanden Abeele; Ann Laenen; Bieke Zaman | |||
| This paper presents a structured way to evaluate challenging group or 'codesign 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 codesign dynamics. For example, some groups rush too quickly towards consensus to safeguard group cohesiveness instead of examining other choice alternatives (i.e., group-think). Besides 'group-think' we describe five more challenging codesign 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. | |||
| Detecting handwriting errors with visual feedback in early childhood for Chinese characters | | BIBA | Full-Text | 273-276 | |
| Will W. W. Tang; Hong Va Leong; Grace Ngai; Stephen C. F. Chan | |||
| This paper presents KID, an interactive app on a smart device, designed to facilitate and encourage young children to learn and practice Chinese characters. It relies on pen dynamics to extract the strokes and map the written character to the proper one. The stroke orientation is also analyzed for ordering and spatial alignment features that pinpoint common errors. A visual pictorial feedback is then provided to motivate children and to arouse their interest. We iterate the prototype design and implementation upon collecting feedback from focus group interviews, from where the system is greeted with positive comments. | |||
| Adapting design probes to explore health management practices in pediatric type 1 diabetes | | BIBA | Full-Text | 277-280 | |
| Damyanka Tsvyatkova; Cristiano Storni | |||
| We used Design Probes (DP) as a communication tool supporting designers to learn about users, collecting self-documentation data from children and parents about their everyday chronic disease management. DP are also applied as alternative strategies to perform ethnographic study in a domestic environment and to elicit inspirational data for the design of an educational interactive eBook for newly diagnosed children with type 1 diabetes mellitus (T1DM). Eight probe activities were designed for children between the ages of 8-12 years who have diabetes and their caregivers, which were then distributed to seven families. The main issue discussed in this paper is the adaptation of the DP to the users (children and parents) and the results produced by participants who used them. | |||
| Design guidelines for more engaging electronic books: insights from a cooperative inquiry study | | BIBA | Full-Text | 281-284 | |
| Luca Colombo; Monica Landoni; Elisa Rubegni | |||
| This paper presents the results of a cooperative inquiry study aimed at developing a prototype of enhanced eBook for leisure reading. Together with a group of 9 to 11 years old children we explored various design ideas and, starting from these ideas, we developed the eBook prototype and elaborated a shortlist of recommendations. The paper aims to extend the research on the design of children's eBooks with a set of six guidelines that are intended to help designers in creating better and more engaging eBooks. | |||
| Do interactions speak louder than words?: Dialogic Reading of an Interactive Tablet-based Ebook with Children between 16 Months and Three Years of Age | | BIBA | Full-Text | 285-288 | |
| Hendrik Knoche; Niklas Ammitzbøll Rasmussen; Kasper Boldreel; Joachim Lykke Østergaard Olesen; Anders Etzerodt Salling Pedersen | |||
| Dialogic reading, in which the reader prompts the child to speak while listening to the story being read, represents a promising way to boost children's lingual development but it is unclear how content interactivity and agency affect the technique. We used video interaction analysis to investigate the effect of interactive elements on speech production of 12 children between the ages of 16 and 33 months when engaged in individual dialogic reading sessions with a tablet-based ebook. Interaction with interactive elements did not reduce the children's responses to dialogic reading prompts. Spontaneous utterances were longer than prompted ones and the children's engagement with interactive elements or sounds coming from the application most often triggered these spontaneous utterances. | |||
| Building an internet of school things ecosystem: a national collaborative experience | | BIBA | Full-Text | 289-292 | |
| Chris Joyce; Han Pham; Danae Stanton Fraser; Stephen Payne; David Crellin; Sean McDougall | |||
| Over the course of the next 10 years, the Internet of Things (IoT) is set to have a transformational effect on the everyday technologies which surround us. Access to the data produced by these devices opens an interesting space to practice discovery based learning. This paper outlines a participatory design approach taken to develop an IoT-based ecosystem which was deployed in 8 schools across England. In particular, we describe how we designed and developed the system and reflect on some of the early experiences of students and teachers. We found that schools were willing to adopt the IoT technology within certain bounds and we outline best practices uncovered when introducing technologies to schools. | |||
| TangiPlan: designing an assistive technology to enhance executive functioning among children with adhd | | BIBA | Full-Text | 293-296 | |
| Orad Weisberg; Ayelet GalOz; Ruth Berkowitz; Noa Weiss; Oran Peretz; Shlomi Azoulai; Daphne KoplemanRubin; Oren Zuckerman | |||
| Children with Attention Deficit and Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) experience a deficit in cognitive processes responsible for purposeful goal-directed behaviors, known as executive functioning (EF). In an effort to improve EF, we are developing TangiPlan a set of tangible connected objects that represent tasks children perform during their morning routine. We describe the initial stages of a user-centered design process, consisting of interviews with both domain experts and potential users, followed by paper prototyping. Based on our findings, we formulated preliminary design principles for EF assistive technology: facilitate organization, time management and planning; involve caregivers in the process, but strive to reduce conflict; implement intervention techniques suggested by experts; avoid distraction by mobile phones; avoid intrusion. We discuss the benefits of implementing these principles with a tangible interface, present our prototype design, and describe future directions. | |||
| ExciteTray: developing an assistive technology to promote self-feeding among young children | | BIBA | Full-Text | 297-300 | |
| Ayelet GalOz; Orad Weisberg; Tal KerenCapelovitch; Yair Uziel; Ronit Slyper; Patrice L. (Tamar) Weiss; Oren Zuckerman | |||
| Typically developing children usually master self-feeding by the age of three years. However, children with Cerebral Palsy and other developmental disabilities encounter great difficulties acquiring this instrumental ability. In an effort to motivate young eaters in the process of acquiring self-feeding abilities, we set out to develop ExciteTray a customized self-feeding assistive technology. We describe the initial stages of an iterative design process consisting of interviews with domain experts, rapid-prototyping, and evaluations with children. Based on our findings, we formulated preliminary design principles for a self-feeding assistive technology: draw attention without causing distraction; motivate the child during the various stages of self-feeding; facilitate face-to-face interaction between caregiver and child; adapt feedback to the cognitive and motor ability of each child. We explain how these principles were implemented in a prototype, discuss safety considerations and describe future work. | |||
| Understanding and fostering children's storytelling during game narrative design | | BIBA | Full-Text | 301-304 | |
| Laura Benton; Asimina Vasalou; Daniel Gooch; Rilla Khaled | |||
| Children typically have extensive expertise and experiences of computer games, which can enable them to make valuable contributions when involved in the design of games. Within this paper we discuss our approach to the involvement of children in the game design process, specifically to inform a game narrative. We describe two design workshops with children, which focused on the design of the narrative within a literacy game based on the Day of the Dead festival. We describe how the knowledge that resulted from these workshops furthered our understanding of children's storytelling schema and preferences for games as well as their approach to story creation and expression during the game design process. We also discuss how our findings informed an initial set of design principles for guiding narrative design within children's games as well as recommendations for including storytelling design activities within the technology design process. | |||
| Interactive and live performance design with children | | BIBA | Full-Text | 305-308 | |
| Karen Rust; Elizabeth Foss; Elizabeth Bonsignore; Brenna McNally; Chelsea Hordatt; Meethu Malu; Bie Mei; Hubert Kofi Gumbs | |||
| Performative Experience Design (PED) is an extension of experience design focusing on the unique time-bound encounter between performers and spectators. Technology is purposefully designed to enhance the experience between audience and performers. PED has been studied with adult participants; however, it has not been explored with children. We conducted a Cooperative Inquiry session to explore 1) how children want to interact with live performances; 2) how they seek to change a story in live performances; and 3) a specific technique that might facilitate designing for such interactions. We present our initial findings regarding children's perceptions of what constitutes live performance and the ways in which children want to use technology to interact with, direct, and respond to narrative structures and characters within live performances. We include a discussion of the features of a specific codesign technique for supporting the ideation process of our child designers. | |||
| Designing digital media for creative mathematical learning | | BIBA | Full-Text | 309-312 | |
| Chronis Kynigos; Foteini Moustaki | |||
| Although "creativity" has been included in lifelong competencies, designing tools and pedagogies for fostering creativity in classroom has been in the last years a field that appears quite overwhelmed. The reason for that mostly stems from the lack of a clear definition of what creativity is or even from the wide range of descriptions for the specificities of situations inside which creativity arises. Among others, the interplay between problem solving and problem posing has been considered an indicator of creativity. This short paper describes the design of a web platform that entails a constructionist medium and two online shared workspaces. Empirical research with these tools attempts to enhance our understanding on they may support students in jointly figuring out how to fix a program for a 3D mathematical artifact and use it as a building block for creative constructions. | |||
| Craft, click and play: crafted videogames, a new approach for physical-digital entertainment | | BIBA | Full-Text | 313-316 | |
| Jesus Ibanez Martinez | |||
| In this paper we present a novel approach for kids' entertainment along with a related technology that makes it possible (as well as a set of use cases that demonstrate its potential). Our approach employs both physical and digital elements. Instead of mixing the physical and digital worlds in the same interface, both worlds are employed separately. In a few words, the kids play with typical physical elements in a creative way for crafting a game scenario in the real world. Then, the result of this physical playtime is transferred to a digital device (particularly a tablet or smartphone) by taking a picture of it. Particular game elements (and its role) are recognised based on their colour. As a result, a digital game is automatically built from the photograph of their physical creations. Two key features of our approach are simplicity and immediacy. The kids can create new whole entertaining experiences very easily (from the technological point of view). The kids are not only responsible for creating the scenarios, but also for defining the game rules and controlling its compliance (as it happens in traditional physical games). The approach aims to foster kids' creativity, socialization, responsibility, conflict resolution, flexibility, and their manual and artistic skills. | |||
| Head mounted displays and deaf children: Facilitating Sign Language in Challenging Learning Environments | | BIBA | Full-Text | 317-320 | |
| Michael Jones; M. Jeannette Lawler; Eric Hintz; Nathan Bench; Fred Mangrubang; Mallory Trullender | |||
| Head-mounted displays (HMDs) are evaluated as a tool to facilitate student-teacher interaction in sign language. Deaf or hard-of-hearing children who communicate in sign language receive all instruction visually. In normal deaf educational settings the child must split visual attention between signed narration and visual aids. Settings in which visual aids are distributed over a large visual area are particularly difficult. Sign language displayed in HMDs may allow a deaf child to keep the signed narration in sight, even when not looking directly at the person signing. Children from the community who communicate primarily in American Sign Language (ASL) participated in two phases of a study designed to evaluate the comfort and utility of viewing ASL in an HMD. | |||
| 3D printed tactile picture books for children with visual impairments: a design probe | | BIBA | Full-Text | 321-324 | |
| Abigale Stangl; Jeeeun Kim; Tom Yeh | |||
| Young children with visual impairments greatly benefit from tactile graphics (illustrations, images, puzzles, objects) during their learning processes. In this paper we present insight about using a 3D printed tactile picture book as a design probe. This has allowed us to identify and engage stakeholders in our research on improving the technical and human processes required for creating 3D printed tactile pictures, and cultivate a community of practice around these processes. We also contribute insight about how our in-person and digital methods of interacting with teachers, parents, and other professionals dedicated to supporting children with visual impairments contributes to research practices. | |||
| Meta-designing interactive outdoor games for children: a case study | | BIBA | Full-Text | 325-328 | |
| Susanne Lagerström; Iris Soute; Yves Florack; Panos Markopoulos | |||
| The growth of tangible and embodied interfaces has lead them to expand from research labs to everyday life. This has raised the question of end-user development and the user requirements for an environment supporting development. This paper researches the user requirements for a toolkit to create interactive outdoor games for children, by adults with no programming skills. We present a case study in which adults designed such games and tested them with children. For the design and testing of the games, RaPIDO, a platform specially designed for prototyping interactive technology, was used. Based on this experience we identify requirements for a toolkit to support the creation of interactive outdoor games. | |||
| The effects of visual contextual structures on children's imagination in story authoring interfaces | | BIBA | Full-Text | 329-332 | |
| Sharon Lynn Chu; Francis Quek | |||
| This paper investigates how the presentation of contextual visual images may influence a child's imagination during the use of authoring systems to create digital content. This issue is particularly significant to understand what supports the child's creativity in authoring systems in creative storytelling. We address specifically children aged 8 to 10 because of the "Fourth-Grade Slump" phenomenon whereby children experience a decrease in creative engagement at this period. We carried out a study in which children used a storytelling system that allows the user to physically enact stories in a digitally-augmented space contextualized by either a contextual background image or a blank screen. Using methods of video coding and analysis, we uncovered themes relating differences between children's enactment in the presence of a digital background and without in terms of both the process and product of storytelling. We discuss implications that the themes have for the design of story authoring systems for children. | |||
| Towards a constructively aligned approach to teaching interaction design & children | | BIBA | Full-Text | 333-336 | |
| Eva Eriksson; Olof Torgersson | |||
| This paper proposes the principles of constructive alignment as foundation for course design within Interaction Design and Children (IDC). While the field has existed for over a decade, there is still no settled curriculum for teaching it. The paper demonstrates how intended learning outcomes in combination with related work and research on teaching IDC can be used to develop a course in IDC, and exemplify this with a brief description of the development of a recently completed course. The contribution of this paper is to support anyone who intends to start teaching in this area, to stimulate discussion in the community, and contribute to an emerging curriculum for Interaction Design and Children. | |||
| Using digital game as clinical screening test to detect color deficiency in young children | | BIBA | Full-Text | 337-340 | |
| LinhChi Nguyen; Weiquan Lu; Ellen YiLuen Do; Audrey Chia; Yuan Wang | |||
| Digital games as education tools for children have been studied in the past. However, the use of digital games in clinical environments such as for children's healthcare is still rare in the research community. This paper reports on the development of a digital tablet game called "Dodo's catching adventure" which examines the use of games in visual color-deficiency screening for young children. A user study was conducted at a National Eye Centre. Results of the study show that the digital game demonstrates sensitivity and specificity on RedGreen color deficiency detection, and is comparable to the two gold standards in color deficiency tests, namely the Ishihara and Farnsworth D15. Furthermore, children found the game to be more enjoyable than the Ishihara test. This provides evidence for the feasibility of using such games as diagnosis tools for early childhood health conditions. | |||
| SmartHolder: sensing and raising families' awareness of tooth brushing habits | | BIBA | Full-Text | 341-344 | |
| Ana Caraban; Maria José Ferreira; Vítor Belim; Olga Lyra; Evangelos Karapanos | |||
| With an increasing emphasis on behavior change technologies, interest has grown over time also on the role of HCI in motivating healthy tooth brushing habits on children. In this paper we present the design and development of SmartHolder, a toothbrush holder that senses the frequency and duration of toothbrush practices and motivates healthy tooth brushing habits, through raising family members' awareness of each other's practices. Wed first present two preliminary studies about children's and adults' tooth brushing behaviors and how these are influenced by social interactions within the family. We conclude through a presentation of early conceptual designs as well as an initial working prototype of SmartHolder. | |||
| Action!: co-designing interactive technology with immigrant teens | | BIBA | Full-Text | 345-348 | |
| Karen E. Fisher; Ann Peterson Bishop; Lassana Magassa; Phil Fawcett | |||
| In the minds and hands of young people lie the capacity to change the world. Our work, InfoMe, is about understanding (a) how immigrant and refugee youth help others in everyday life -- elders, friends, complete strangers -- through information and technology, and (b) how these behaviors can be supported through youths? designs for interactive technologies and services. We reflect on our work developing the Teen Design Day methodology with youth from Africa and Asia, and consider our approach in relation to others for supporting interaction design with youth. Teen Design Days is a scalable, portable methodology used in situ that enables investigators to explore concepts, test ideas, and create designs with youth, while meeting their developmental needs in safe settings and in culturally and gender appropriate ways. | |||
| RaBit EscAPE: a board game for computational thinking | | BIBA | Full-Text | 349-352 | |
| Panagiotis Apostolellis; Michael Stewart; Chris Frisina; Dennis Kafura | |||
| Computational thinking (CT) is increasingly seen as a core literacy skill for the modern world on par with the long-established skills of reading, writing, and arithmetic. To promote the learning of CT at a young age we capitalized on children's interest in play. We designed RabBit EscApe, a board game that challenges children, ages 6-10, to orient tangible, magnetized manipulatives to complete or create paths. We also ran an informal study to investigate the effectiveness of the game in fostering children's problem-solving capacity during collaborative game play. We used the results to inform our instructional interaction design that we think will better support the learning activities and help children hone the involved CT skills. Overall, we believe in the power of such games to challenge children to grow their understanding of CT in a focused and engaging activity. | |||
| FabCode: visual programming environment for digital fabrication | | BIBA | Full-Text | 353-356 | |
| Harshit Agrawal; Rishika Jain; Prabhat Kumar; Pradeep Yammiyavar | |||
| In this paper, we introduce FabCode, a visual programming environment using which one can create designs that can be manufactured using digital fabrication techniques like 3D printing and laser cutting. This project is primarily about making accessible and enhancing the kinds of "thinking" that the computational medium is capable of supporting and spreading. FabCode is situated in the context of design and engineering of objects, and is based on the premise that programming 3D models for personal fabrication would enable practice of computational thinking for the same. Children will learn as they work on personally meaningful projects-building, describing, printing and playing with things, and debugging and discussing their processes and outcomes. It will be a child-centered, constructionist tool for FabLabs. | |||
| Frog pond: a code-first learning environment on evolution and natural selection | | BIBA | Full-Text | 357-360 | |
| Michael S. Horn; Corey Brady; Arthur Hjorth; Aditi Wagh; Uri Wilensky | |||
| Understanding processes of evolution and natural selection is both important and challenging for learners. We describe a "code-first" learning environment called Frog Pond designed to introduce natural selection to elementary and middle school aged learners. Learners use NetTango, a blocks-based programming interface to NetLogo, to control frogs inhabiting a lily pond. Simple programs result in changes to the frog population over successive generations. Our approach foregrounds computational thinking as a bridge to understanding evolution as an emergent phenomenon. | |||
| How can interaction with digital creative tools support child development?: (closing panel) | | BIBA | Full-Text | 361 | |
| Allison Druin; Paulo Blikstein; Marilyn Fleer; Janet C. Read; Bo Stjerne Thomsen; Brian David Johnson; Mitch Resnick | |||
| The last session at this year's conference is an interactive panel discussion facilitated by Prof. Mitch Resnick from MIT Media Lab. The closing panel consists of leading university and industry researchers with strong opinions about digital technology and its relation to children and childhood. The topic for this session is the general question for this year's conference: "How can interaction with digital creative tools support child development?" The panel reflects on theoretical frameworks and challenges for the design of new digital technologies for a new generation of children, discussing new trajectories to support children's learning, wellbeing, and sensemaking. Panelists draw upon ideas from the papers, demos, tutorials, and keynotes presented at the IDC 2014 conference. IDC delegates have the opportunity to join the conversation, posing their own questions and comments. The closing panel concludes IDC 2014 by sharing ideas on how we can build tomorrow's technology together. | |||