How to optimize early design methods with children?

Early design methods with children are often evaluated on how well the children are involved, rather than on how effective the design session was. In my PhD I developed a framework on the basis of the theory of multiples by H. Gardner. The framework compares early design methods on the cognitive skills they require from the participants. Comparing the skills required by the methods with the skills acquired by children at different ages gives rise to interesting hypothesis about the effectiveness of a method with children. My first experiment showed that involving children in a rapid prototyping explores the design space better in terms of design options than a brainstorming session. In the doctoral consortium I will discuss the expected effectiveness of design methods with children in more detail and the setup of the next experiments

How to optimize early design methods with children?

Early design methods with children are often evaluated on how well the children are involved, rather than on how effective the design session was. In my PhD I developed a framework on the basis of the theory of multiples by H. Gardner. The framework compares early design methods on the cognitive skills they require from the participants. Comparing the skills required by the methods with the skills acquired by children at different ages gives rise to interesting hypothesis about the effectiveness of a method with children. My first experiment showed that involving children in a rapid prototyping explores the design space better in terms of design options than a brainstorming session. In the doctoral consortium I will discuss the expected effectiveness of design methods with children in more detail and the setup of the next experiments

Comparing early design methods for children

This paper describes a study which compares the outcome of two early design methods for children: brainstorming and prototyping. The hypothesis is that children will uncover more design ideas when prototyping than when brainstorming, because prototyping requires the use of a wider range of Intelligences according to Gardner's Theory of Multiple Intelligences. The protocols were coded using Design Rationale Theory: distinguishing between Options (design solutions) and evaluation Criteria. The results show that as expected children provided more Options in sessions that appeal to a wider range of intelligences. However, unexpectedly children provided more Criteria in the session that appealed mostly to one intelligence

Playful cognitive behavioral therapy apps : design concepts and tactics for engaging young patients

As smart solutions for healthcare (eHealth) are becoming increasingly widespread, apps and other digital devices may effectively complement various forms of psychotherapy. We point at children and adolescents in psychological therapy as a yet-underserved public for similar solutions. Moreover, a shared design sensibility between interaction designers, game designers, and therapists is still lacking. The Games 4 Therapy initiative was launched to address this problem space through practical design explorations. We illustrate its design research agenda, we call for more attention to children and adolescents as important recipients of digitally-mediated psychological therapies, and we offer actionable concepts and game design tactics for interaction designers and psychotherapists. Finally, we discuss our findings by "thinking through" a selection of conceptual design explorations, pointing at the characteristics and tactics we identified in our sketches

Comparing early design methods for children

This paper describes a study which compares the outcome of two early design methods for children: brainstorming and prototyping. The hypothesis is that children will uncover more design ideas when prototyping than when brainstorming, because prototyping requires the use of a wider range of Intelligences according to Gardner's Theory of Multiple Intelligences. The protocols were coded using Design Rationale Theory: distinguishing between Options (design solutions) and evaluation Criteria. The results show that as expected children provided more Options in sessions that appeal to a wider range of intelligences. However, unexpectedly children provided more Criteria in the session that appealed mostly to one intelligence

Development and application of a framework for comparing early-design methods for young children

When designing with young children, designers usually select user centred design methods based on the children’s required level of engagement and the inspiration expected to be created according to the designer. User centred design methods should be selected for their suitability for children and for the quality of the output of the design method. To understand the suitability of design methods, a framework was developed to describe design methods in terms of required design skills as identified by the Theory of Multiple Intelligences. The proposed framework could provide the basis for a tool to compare design methods and to generate hypotheses about what design method would work optimally with children in a specific school grade. The initial examination of the viability of the framework is a comparison of design methods by the number of skills involved; earlier work showed that the involvement of more skills (as with, e.g. low-fi prototyping) could result in more options for a design problem than the involvement of fewer skills (as with e.g. brainstorming). Options and Criteria were counted to understand the quality of the method in terms of the amount of design-information. The results of the current paper indicate that 8-to-10-year-old children generate significantly more options in prototyping sessions than when they are involved in sessions applying a Nominal Group Technique. The paper indicates that (a) with the framework we can generate hypotheses to compare design methods with children and (b) that the outcome of various design methods, which might lead to very different representations, can be compared in terms of Options and Criteria. Further usage of the framework is expected to result in empirical support for selecting a design method to be applied with young children

Comparing the creativity of children's design solutions based on expert assessment

LOBBI Netherlands Consortium Subscribe (Full Service) Register (Limited Service, Free) Login Search: The ACM Digital Library The Guide Feedback Comparing the creativity of children's design solutions based on expert assessment Full text Pdf (3.04 MB) Source Interaction Design and Children archive Proceedings of the 7th international conference on Interaction design and children table of contents Chicago, Illinois SESSION: Papers table of contents Pages 266-273 Year of Publication: 2008 ISBN:978-1-59593-994-4 Authors Binh Thang VU University Amsterdam, Amsterdam, The Netherlands Wouter Sluis-Thiescheffer Eindhoven University of Technology, Eindhoven, The Netherlands Tilde Bekker Eindhoven University of Technology, Eindhoven, The Netherlands Berry Eggen Eindhoven University of Technology, Eindhoven, The Netherlands Arnold Vermeeren Delft University of Technology, Delft, The Netherlands Huib de Ridder Delft University of Technology, Delft, The Netherlands Publisher ACM New York, NY, USA Bibliometrics Downloads (6 Weeks): 26, Downloads (12 Months): 71, Citation Count: 0 Additional Information: abstract references index terms collaborative colleagues Tools and Actions: Review this Article Save this Article to a Binder Display Formats: BibTex EndNote ACM Ref DOI Bookmark: Use this link to bookmark this Article: http://doi.acm.org/10.1145/1463689.1463765 What is a DOI? ABSTRACT This paper describes a study in which the outcome of early design sessions with eight-to-twelve-year old children is assessed through expert judgment. Experts compare the outcomes of two early design methods: brainstorming and prototyping. The design case was to come up with a solution for incapacitated children that need to attend class from home. The hypothesis is that children will generate more creative design solutions when prototyping than when brainstorming, because we reason that prototyping requires a wider range of intelligences according to Gardner's Theory of Multiple Intelligences. The outcome of the sessions is assessed on creativity and five explanatory criteria. The results show that a brainstorming method generates design solutions that are more creative. However, both methods produce creative design solutions; the brainstorming sessions generate more surprising and novel design solutions, the prototyping results are considered more relevant and workable