Children in the information technology design process: A review of theories and their applications

@article{citeulike:516967, abstract = {This article reviews the literature on the role that children can play in the design of information technology applications intended for young users themselves. It discusses several relevant design theories--user-centered design, contextual design (CD) or inquiry, participatory design (PD), cooperative inquiry, informant design, and learner-centered design--looks at usability issues in relation to design and children, and presents a number of studies in which children have been actively involved in the design both of software and Web portals. Designers are finding that children as well as adults can have a valuable and complementary role to play in the design process, although its precise nature is a matter of debate.}, author = {Nesset, Valerie and Large, Andrew }, citeulike-article-id = {516967}, comment = {Conclusion "What can be concluded about these various design theories based upon the rather limited number of applications in the information technology field? It has become obvious that as children’s likes, dislikes, wants, and needs in relation to technology become more and more sophisticated, they must be involved in the design process in a meaningful way. Certainly, few if any current researchers would dispute the value of including children in at least some aspects of the design of children’s technologies; the dispute lies in the methods for accomplishing this. The participatory design theories discussed in this article each have the potential to be adapted to include children as active participants. However, picking and choosing different aspects from these theories that can better facilitate the involvement of children will go a long way in achieving the usability goals set by experts such as Nielsen, Rubin, and Shneiderman, as well as other goals significant to the design of information technologies. As Druin and Large have shown with their work with intergenerational design teams, reinforced by that of Hanna et al. (1997, 1999) and Theng et al. (2000), involving children as much as possible in the design process initiates and facilitates innovations and improvements to the final design that might not otherwise have been thought of by adult designers. The research has shown, however, that there are limitations to involving children in all aspects of the design process. Children often have difficulty in expressing ideas (Large et al., 2003a, 2003b, in press) and learning goals they have not yet met and as a result may be unable to participate fully as design partners and can contribute only in an informant role (Scaife \& Rogers, 1999). In terms of working as an intergenerational design team, children are often very conscious of age differences, no matter how slight (Nielsen, 2002), and may need to be separated according to age (Hanna et al., 1999) to be able to participate effectively. Other difficulties in establishing intergenerational design teams are the dynamics of power relations between adult and child, and directly related to this, the fact that some professional designers may have difficulty accepting children as peers (Scaife \& Rogers, 1999; Scaife et al., 1997). However, it should be noted that many of these drawbacks can be overcome as evidenced by the research conducted by Druin et al. and Large et al., and that the notion of including children as full members of a design team merits further study. To better promote creativity, usability, and profitability, designers must move forward from the reactive process of including children towards the end of the design process in the limited roles of user and tester. Although not all V. Nesset, A. Large / Library \& Information Science Research 26 (2004) 140–161 159 children may be able to participate as full design partners, they can be involved as informants at salient points throughout the design process. And although participatory design techniques can often be expensive and time consuming when working with adults and are likely to be more so with children, the advantages in terms of innovation and appropriateness of design can outweigh these negative factors. As has been established in this review, researchers have demonstrated the benefits of including children in the design process. Therefore, to modify the quote by Scaife et al. (1997), in light of today’s research into the development of children’s technologies, it might now be said, ‘‘the real issue would seem to be not whether involving children is good or bad but rather how to more effectively engage them in the design process." (159-160) ---=note-separator=--- Learner-centered design "Soloway, Guzdial, and Hay (1994), expanding upon the idea that the long-term goal of computing is to make people smarter, decided that the HCI community needed to move from the traditional 'user-centered' design to what they term learner-centered design. This approach assumes that everyone is a learner, whether a professional or a student. In fact, Soloway et al. describe professionals as 'students who happen to learn outside of a classroom' (p. 39). Therefore, the main focus of learner-centered design is to ensure that the interface design is adapted to the interests, knowledge, and styles of the learners who use the software. Soloway et al. (1994) believe in the educational philosophy of 'learning by doing.' For them, 'when learning is divorced from doing a meaningful task . . . then learning becomes just another chore . . .' (p. 40). The three issues addressed by user-centered design are tasks (what does the software need to do?), tools (what tools are provided to handle these tasks?), and interfaces (what is the interface to these tools?). The issues at the heart of learner-centered design are understanding (how will the learner learn the practice?), motivation (how can software motivate a learner?), diversity (every learner is different—what kind of software can be developed that supports this?), and growth (the learner changes but the software does not)." (p 148) ---=note-separator=--- Informant design "Developed by Scaife and his colleagues at Sussex University in England, 'informant design' was introduced to address some of the perceived problems with user-centered and participatory design techniques when working with children. In conventional user-centered design, users are involved only as evaluators or testers at the end of the design process, and therefore their feedback is based on reaction rather than initiation. Furthermore, in user centered design, it is up to the designers to translate and interpret the users’ reactions and this can be an inaccurate practice. The perceived problem with participatory design is its promotion of equality for all team members. Scaife considers this approach to be effective for a team composed of adult users who can view each other as peers but infeasible when dealing with children. He does not believe that children have the time, knowledge, or expertise to participate fully in the collaborative participatory design model (Scaife, Rogers, Aldrich, \& Davies, 1997)." (p 147) ---=note-separator=--- Cooperative inquiry "Developed by Druin and her colleagues at the University of Maryland, cooperative inquiry is a combination of techniques from different design methodologies that have proven useful when working with children. Based on the cooperative design practices of Scandinavian countries and the participatory design practices of the United States, the critical outcome of cooperative inquiry is design-centered learning. Cooperative inquiry is grounded in human– computer interaction (HCI) research and theories of cooperative design involving a multidisciplinary partnership with children, field research, and iterative low- and high-tech prototyping. A truly cooperative approach, cooperative inquiry treats children as full design partners—equals to the professional adult designers on the team. Professional designers and users (children) of the technology are partnered in intergenerational design teams with the understanding that full participation of users requires training and active cooperation." (p 144) ---=note-separator=--- Participatory design "Participatory design (PD) originated in the Scandinavian workplace and promotes workers’ control over their work and their lives. Its premise is that users are the best qualified to determine how to improve their work and work life and that their perceptions about technology are as important as technical specifications (Carmel, Whitaker, \& George, 1993). A highly iterative approach, goals, and the strategies for accomplishing them are continually refined. PD looks to compromise rather than consensus as an end goal. It follows flexible practices and general guidelines; there is no standard set or ordering of practices, nor is there a set structure for the time frame of the project. As Fleming notes, ‘‘Through this approach, ‘users move out of roles such as observer, approver ‘knowledge repository’ . . . and into roles such as peer co-designer, design owner, expertise contributor, and self-advocate’’ (Fleming in Bilal, 2002, p. 208). In PD, users move from extrinsic roles such as observer to intrinsic roles such as peer codesigner." (p 143) ---=note-separator=--- Contextual design: Contextual design focuses on understanding the users practices in their natural settings. "The aims of CD are to reveal the details and motivations of people’s work, to make the customers and their work needs real to the designers, to use customer data as the basis of decision making, and to create a shared understanding of the data by researchers and users. Its purpose is to reveal who the customers really are and how they work. CD calls for researchers to collect data in the users’ own environment by observing them performing typical activities. The researchers usually record observational data by taking field notes and/or using audiovisual technologies. Even when conducting one-on-one interviews with the users at the workplace to develop a deeper understanding of the users’ work, interaction between researchers and users is minimal since usually the researchers ask questions only for the purposes of clarification." (p 142) CD starts by 'work modelling', using five differnt models to describe the flow and structure of activity in the workplace. These models are constructed from observations in different settings where the designed product is to be used. The next step is called 'consilidation' and involves extraction of common patterns across settings. The final phase of CD involves developing a low-tech prototype mock-up of the system and testing it with users. This allows the designer to flush out critical errors before sinking into large prodction costs. ---=note-separator=--- User-centered: "The oldest and most conventional approach to design that includes users in the design process can be called user-centered design. Although linked with all forms of design that include users, historically, user-centered design refers to a process undertaken once the technology has already been developed and released onto the market." (p 141) Involves users in post-production product testing and evaluation. "Therefore, this approach focuses on the impact of the technology on users, enabling the development of future versions of the existing technology or the design of completely new technologies. Because the users, whether adult or child, are only involved after the technology has been designed, they have little or no control in the process. User-centered design is still employed as a tool to consider the future of new technologies and new educational uses of technology (Druin, 2002)." (p 141) "One major drawback of user-centered design is that the users’ involvement is limited. They cannot themselves initiate any changes but only reveal any design shortcomings. Another drawback directly associated with involving children in this approach is that the research methods such as task activities and questionnaires may be boring and/or difficult for children to understand. An advantage though is that children can be incorporated into the research quite easily and in large numbers. Researchers may perform comprehensive studies with many children, producing remarkable results" (p 141-142) ---=note-separator=--- A good review paper. ---=note-separator=--- I have a copy}, doi = {10.1016/j.lisr.2003.12.002}, journal = {Library \& Information Science Research}, keywords = {contextual, cooperative, design, learner-centered, learning, mathgamespatterns, participatory, review, technology, theories}, month = {}, number = {2}, pages = {140--161}, posted-at = {2006-02-23 12:01:18}, priority = {2}, title = {Children in the information technology design process: A review of theories and their applications}, url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.lisr.2003.12.002}, volume = {26}, year = {2004} }

TY - JOUR ID - citeulike:516967 L3 - citeulike-article-id:516967 TI - Children in the information technology design process: A review of theories and their applications JF - Library & Information Science Research VL - 26 IS - 2 SP - 140 EP - 161 N2 - This article reviews the literature on the role that children can play in the design of information technology applications intended for young users themselves. It discusses several relevant design theories--user-centered design, contextual design (CD) or inquiry, participatory design (PD), cooperative inquiry, informant design, and learner-centered design--looks at usability issues in relation to design and children, and presents a number of studies in which children have been actively involved in the design both of software and Web portals. Designers are finding that children as well as adults can have a valuable and complementary role to play in the design process, although its precise nature is a matter of debate. KW - contextual KW - cooperative KW - design KW - learner-centered KW - learning KW - mathgamespatterns KW - participatory KW - review KW - technology KW - theories N1 - Conclusion "What can be concluded about these various design theories based upon the rather limited number of applications in the information technology field? It has become obvious that as children’s likes, dislikes, wants, and needs in relation to technology become more and more sophisticated, they must be involved in the design process in a meaningful way. Certainly, few if any current researchers would dispute the value of including children in at least some aspects of the design of children’s technologies; the dispute lies in the methods for accomplishing this. The participatory design theories discussed in this article each have the potential to be adapted to include children as active participants. However, picking and choosing different aspects from these theories that can better facilitate the involvement of children will go a long way in achieving the usability goals set by experts such as Nielsen, Rubin, and Shneiderman, as well as other goals significant to the design of information technologies. As Druin and Large have shown with their work with intergenerational design teams, reinforced by that of Hanna et al. (1997, 1999) and Theng et al. (2000), involving children as much as possible in the design process initiates and facilitates innovations and improvements to the final design that might not otherwise have been thought of by adult designers. The research has shown, however, that there are limitations to involving children in all aspects of the design process. Children often have difficulty in expressing ideas (Large et al., 2003a, 2003b, in press) and learning goals they have not yet met and as a result may be unable to participate fully as design partners and can contribute only in an informant role (Scaife & Rogers, 1999). In terms of working as an intergenerational design team, children are often very conscious of age differences, no matter how slight (Nielsen, 2002), and may need to be separated according to age (Hanna et al., 1999) to be able to participate effectively. Other difficulties in establishing intergenerational design teams are the dynamics of power relations between adult and child, and directly related to this, the fact that some professional designers may have difficulty accepting children as peers (Scaife & Rogers, 1999; Scaife et al., 1997). However, it should be noted that many of these drawbacks can be overcome as evidenced by the research conducted by Druin et al. and Large et al., and that the notion of including children as full members of a design team merits further study. To better promote creativity, usability, and profitability, designers must move forward from the reactive process of including children towards the end of the design process in the limited roles of user and tester. Although not all V. Nesset, A. Large / Library & Information Science Research 26 (2004) 140–161 159 children may be able to participate as full design partners, they can be involved as informants at salient points throughout the design process. And although participatory design techniques can often be expensive and time consuming when working with adults and are likely to be more so with children, the advantages in terms of innovation and appropriateness of design can outweigh these negative factors. As has been established in this review, researchers have demonstrated the benefits of including children in the design process. Therefore, to modify the quote by Scaife et al. (1997), in light of today’s research into the development of children’s technologies, it might now be said, ‘‘the real issue would seem to be not whether involving children is good or bad but rather how to more effectively engage them in the design process." (159-160) N1 - Learner-centered design "Soloway, Guzdial, and Hay (1994), expanding upon the idea that the long-term goal of computing is to make people smarter, decided that the HCI community needed to move from the traditional 'user-centered' design to what they term learner-centered design. This approach assumes that everyone is a learner, whether a professional or a student. In fact, Soloway et al. describe professionals as 'students who happen to learn outside of a classroom' (p. 39). Therefore, the main focus of learner-centered design is to ensure that the interface design is adapted to the interests, knowledge, and styles of the learners who use the software. Soloway et al. (1994) believe in the educational philosophy of 'learning by doing.' For them, 'when learning is divorced from doing a meaningful task . . . then learning becomes just another chore . . .' (p. 40). The three issues addressed by user-centered design are tasks (what does the software need to do?), tools (what tools are provided to handle these tasks?), and interfaces (what is the interface to these tools?). The issues at the heart of learner-centered design are understanding (how will the learner learn the practice?), motivation (how can software motivate a learner?), diversity (every learner is different—what kind of software can be developed that supports this?), and growth (the learner changes but the software does not)." (p 148) N1 - Informant design "Developed by Scaife and his colleagues at Sussex University in England, 'informant design' was introduced to address some of the perceived problems with user-centered and participatory design techniques when working with children. In conventional user-centered design, users are involved only as evaluators or testers at the end of the design process, and therefore their feedback is based on reaction rather than initiation. Furthermore, in user centered design, it is up to the designers to translate and interpret the users’ reactions and this can be an inaccurate practice. The perceived problem with participatory design is its promotion of equality for all team members. Scaife considers this approach to be effective for a team composed of adult users who can view each other as peers but infeasible when dealing with children. He does not believe that children have the time, knowledge, or expertise to participate fully in the collaborative participatory design model (Scaife, Rogers, Aldrich, & Davies, 1997)." (p 147) N1 - Cooperative inquiry "Developed by Druin and her colleagues at the University of Maryland, cooperative inquiry is a combination of techniques from different design methodologies that have proven useful when working with children. Based on the cooperative design practices of Scandinavian countries and the participatory design practices of the United States, the critical outcome of cooperative inquiry is design-centered learning. Cooperative inquiry is grounded in human– computer interaction (HCI) research and theories of cooperative design involving a multidisciplinary partnership with children, field research, and iterative low- and high-tech prototyping. A truly cooperative approach, cooperative inquiry treats children as full design partners—equals to the professional adult designers on the team. Professional designers and users (children) of the technology are partnered in intergenerational design teams with the understanding that full participation of users requires training and active cooperation." (p 144) N1 - Participatory design "Participatory design (PD) originated in the Scandinavian workplace and promotes workers’ control over their work and their lives. Its premise is that users are the best qualified to determine how to improve their work and work life and that their perceptions about technology are as important as technical specifications (Carmel, Whitaker, & George, 1993). A highly iterative approach, goals, and the strategies for accomplishing them are continually refined. PD looks to compromise rather than consensus as an end goal. It follows flexible practices and general guidelines; there is no standard set or ordering of practices, nor is there a set structure for the time frame of the project. As Fleming notes, ‘‘Through this approach, ‘users move out of roles such as observer, approver ‘knowledge repository’ . . . and into roles such as peer co-designer, design owner, expertise contributor, and self-advocate’’ (Fleming in Bilal, 2002, p. 208). In PD, users move from extrinsic roles such as observer to intrinsic roles such as peer codesigner." (p 143) N1 - Contextual design: Contextual design focuses on understanding the users practices in their natural settings. "The aims of CD are to reveal the details and motivations of people’s work, to make the customers and their work needs real to the designers, to use customer data as the basis of decision making, and to create a shared understanding of the data by researchers and users. Its purpose is to reveal who the customers really are and how they work. CD calls for researchers to collect data in the users’ own environment by observing them performing typical activities. The researchers usually record observational data by taking field notes and/or using audiovisual technologies. Even when conducting one-on-one interviews with the users at the workplace to develop a deeper understanding of the users’ work, interaction between researchers and users is minimal since usually the researchers ask questions only for the purposes of clarification." (p 142) CD starts by 'work modelling', using five differnt models to describe the flow and structure of activity in the workplace. These models are constructed from observations in different settings where the designed product is to be used. The next step is called 'consilidation' and involves extraction of common patterns across settings. The final phase of CD involves developing a low-tech prototype mock-up of the system and testing it with users. This allows the designer to flush out critical errors before sinking into large prodction costs. N1 - User-centered: "The oldest and most conventional approach to design that includes users in the design process can be called user-centered design. Although linked with all forms of design that include users, historically, user-centered design refers to a process undertaken once the technology has already been developed and released onto the market." (p 141) Involves users in post-production product testing and evaluation. "Therefore, this approach focuses on the impact of the technology on users, enabling the development of future versions of the existing technology or the design of completely new technologies. Because the users, whether adult or child, are only involved after the technology has been designed, they have little or no control in the process. User-centered design is still employed as a tool to consider the future of new technologies and new educational uses of technology (Druin, 2002)." (p 141) "One major drawback of user-centered design is that the users’ involvement is limited. They cannot themselves initiate any changes but only reveal any design shortcomings. Another drawback directly associated with involving children in this approach is that the research methods such as task activities and questionnaires may be boring and/or difficult for children to understand. An advantage though is that children can be incorporated into the research quite easily and in large numbers. Researchers may perform comprehensive studies with many children, producing remarkable results" (p 141-142) N1 - A good review paper. N1 - I have a copy AU - Nesset, Valerie AU - Large, Andrew PY - 2004/0// UR - http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.lisr.2003.12.002 ER -