Evaluation Strategy for the Re-Development of the Displays and Visitor Facilities at the Museum and Art Gallery, Kelvingrove

No abstract available

BugBits: Making tangibles with children

The thesis presents and discusses the processes that lead to the development of a tangible toolkit for supporting design workshops aimed at building tangible interfaces with children. The toolkit, called BugBits, was used to explore and instantiate participatory design workshops with children enabling them to be creative and develop new prototypes. BugBits was tested in three case studies with children of different ages. The first study was conducted in a modern art museum, where children aged between 13 and 15 years old (N=185) built personalised artefacts with the toolkit. The artefacts were then used to perform an augmented visit to some of the exhibition rooms of the museum. The second study (N=31) was conducted in a kindergarten with children between 3 and 6 years old. The toolkit was adopted to perform two educational exercises about colours characteristics. The third study (N=24) explored how the toolkit can be used to instantiate creative processes during participatory design workshops with children between 7 and 11 years old. During the studies, qualitative and quantitative data were collected and analysed. The outcomes of the analysis show that the toolkit can be used with success to keep the children engaged (study 1, 2, 3) and obtain an active and effective participation (study 3) and allow them to build new and evolving TUI prototypes (study 3). By retrospectively reflecting on the process, the thesis presents the KPW process to guide and instantiate the design of generative tools for TUI design with children. The KPW process poses particular attention to the children roles, and how the technological choices affect the design

SmallTalk: Using tangible interactions to gather feedback from children

Gathering opinions from young children is challenging and different methods have been explored. In this paper we investigated how tangible devices can be used to gather feedback from children in the context of a theater performance. We introduce SmallTalk, a tangible survey system designed for use within a theater space to capture what children, aged 4 to 9, thought of a live performance they had just seen. We describe how the system was designed to build on previous feedback methods that had been tried; while at the same time meeting the constraints of the challenging theater context. We present results from seven deployments of SmallTalk and based on these we briefly discuss its value as a method for evaluating the theater performance. We then look at how the results validated the system design and present several design implications that more generally relate to tangible feedback systems for children

Designing with Children: Reflections on Effective Involvement of Children in the Interaction Design Process

This 
thesis 
contributes 
to 
the
 discussion 
around
 the 
practice
 of
co-design 
with 
children 
by 
providing 
support 
for 
reflections 
to
 practitioners. 
The
 framework
 that 
derived
 from
 this
 research 
aims 
to 
increase 
the
 awareness 
on 
the 
implications 
the 
different 
aspects
 involved 
on
 co‐design
 session 
have
 on 
its 
outcome. 
Researchers 
with 
little 
experience
 in
 managing 
co‐ design
 sessions
 can 
benefit 
from 
it
 when
 deciding
 on 
their 
co‐design 
strategies

Designing and Prototyping an Interactive Exhibition at Te Papa Tongarewa

The goal of this project was to aid The Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa in communicating the importance of ice core research as evidence for climate change by recommending designs for an interactive exhibition. To achieve this goal, our team developed, prototyped, and tested potential exhibition designs through an iterative process that allowed for improvements to be made based on visitor feedback. We used this feedback to gauge the visitor experience of our exhibition and to establish proof of our concept. Our team created a final design and recommendations for Te Papa to consider for their exhibition

Proceedings of the International Workshop “Re-Thinking Technology in Museums: towards a new understanding of people’s experience in museums"

Proceedings of the International Workshop “Re-Thinking Technology in Museums: towards a new understanding of people’s experience in museums

An aesthetics of touch: investigating the language of design relating to form

How well can designers communicate qualities of touch? This paper presents evidence that they have some capability to do so, much of which appears to have been learned, but at present make limited use of such language. Interviews with graduate designer-makers suggest that they are aware of and value the importance of touch and materiality in their work, but lack a vocabulary to fully relate to their detailed explanations of other aspects such as their intent or selection of materials. We believe that more attention should be paid to the verbal dialogue that happens in the design process, particularly as other researchers show that even making-based learning also has a strong verbal element to it. However, verbal language alone does not appear to be adequate for a comprehensive language of touch. Graduate designers-makers’ descriptive practices combined non-verbal manipulation within verbal accounts. We thus argue that haptic vocabularies do not simply describe material qualities, but rather are situated competences that physically demonstrate the presence of haptic qualities. Such competencies are more important than groups of verbal vocabularies in isolation. Design support for developing and extending haptic competences must take this wide range of considerations into account to comprehensively improve designers’ capabilities

Evaluation Strategy for the Re-Development of the Displays and Visitor Facilities at the Museum and Art Gallery, Kelvingrove

No abstract available

A comparative study into how pupils can play different roles in co-design activities

We explore the roles children play in the design and evaluation of technological tools in a formal educational environment. In order to do so, we describe two separate projects set in a formal educational context: primary schools, with children aged 8-10, in Switzerland (called PADS), and with older students, 11-12, in Scotland (called CHIS). In the first case the teacher and pupils were co- designing a novel application to support the creation of multimedia fairy tales, where in the second students and teachers worked towards the definition of new tools to assist them in searching for information. Tasks are different but comparable in terms of complexity and level of interest expressed by children. Researchers followed a similar approach in order to interact with the stakeholders. We here describe the different attitudes and assumptions of the teachers involved. In the Scottish study these encouraged students to make choices, propose solutions and work independently. In the Swiss study these aimed at supporting children use of digital media and artefacts for the creation of a digital fairy tale. Our investigation aims at getting a better understanding of the kind of roles and contributions young users could bring to collaborative design and how to better engage and motivate them