The Role of Children in the Design of New Technology
Item
Title
The Role of Children in the Design of New Technology
Abstract/Description
Children play games, chat with friends, tell stories, study history or math, and today this can all be donesupported by new technologies. From the Internet to multimedia authoring tools, technology is changingthe way children live and learn. As these new technologies become ever more critical to our children’slives, we need to be sure these technologies support children in ways that make sense for them as younglearners, explorers, and avid technology users. This may seem of obvious importance, because for almost20 years the Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) community has pursued new ways to understand users oftechnology. However, with children as users, it has been difficult to bring them into the design process.Children go to school for most of their days; there are existing power structures, biases, and assumptionsbetween adults and children to get beyond; and children, especially young ones have difficulty inverbalizing their thoughts. For all of these reasons, a child’s role in the design of new technology hashistorically been minimized. Based upon a survey of the literature and my own research experiences withchildren, this paper defines a framework for understanding the various roles children can have in the designprocess, and how these roles can impact technologies that are created.
Author/creator
Date
In publication
Volume
21
Issue
1
Pages
1-25
Resource type
Background/Context
Medium
Print
Background/context type
Other
Open access/free-text available
Yes
Peer reviewed
Yes
ISSN
0144-929X
Citation
Druin, A. (2002). The Role of Children in the Design of New Technology. Behaviour & Information Technology, 21(1), 1–25. https://doi.org/10.1080/01449290110108659
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