Supporting students to make their reflections visible and accessible during the inquiry-based process can enhance the learning outcomes and foster reflective thinking. This research examines how technology can play a role in scaffolding students to create contextualized reflection-in-action products which can contribute to reflection-on-action in design-based learning classroom. In this paper, we present the design of a multimedia tool called ReflectionScope, which offers contextualized scaffolding to prompt students to monitor their action and create reflective videos using the digital video-camera or visual “scope” attached. Twenty-one secondary school students (aged 13) used ReflectionScope in a two-weeks design-based learning class. An analysis of the reflective video’s students created during this class and the post-interview, shows that students articulate their reflection-in-action in a structured way with context-rich information. Students perceived that the videos are beneficial for retrieving and understanding the contextual reflection-in-action moments for reflection-on-action. Based on our findings, we propose design principles that can contribute to designing for reflection practices which can be enhanced by media-technology in real-world inquiry-based learning environments.

This Research Full Paper presents a case study where university students (N=13) use a paper diary called EmoForm to self-track their emotions over a ten-week-long design-based learning course. Design-Based Learning (DBL) is a learning approach that enables students to learn through a sequence of design activities in a project-based learning or problem-based learning environment. Student's emotions are known to play an essential role in learning settings. We argue that students engaging in DBL will benefit from self-tracking of emotions. Such self-tracking will enable students to identify and control their emotions during the DBL process. The results of this study confirm that self-tracking with EmoForm enabled students' emotion awareness in DBL. In particular, our results illustrate how self-tracking with EmoForm impacted on students' DBL from three major aspects. We discuss design challenges regarding tools to support emotion awareness in DBL, and we present a summary of strategies conducive towards emotion awareness in DBL and the implications for future research.

Tangibles can model abstract structures. One educational subject where this can be utilized is instruction on data visualization inter- pretation. Data physicalizations, tangible representations of data, offer graspable handles for the users to manipulate data visualiza- tions directly so that they can better understand what information they hold. However, investigations on the applicability of interac- tive data physicalizations in educational settings are still sparse. In this paper, we explore how students reason with an interactive tangible scatterplot through a collaborative data interpretation tool, CoDa. We report the design, development, and the user experiences in an exploratory study where 11 students, in groups of 2 to 4, completed a data analysis task with CoDa. The qualitative results show insights in the process of data interpretation, how interaction with the tangibles influenced these data interpretations, how the system aided collaboration and, overall user experience. We believe the results and implications offer a step towards nurturing future educational applications on interactive data physicalizations.

Through the integration of technology-enhanced learning (TEL) in the classrooms, there is an increase in Virtual Learning Environment-supported classes in secondary schools, which brings unintentional complexities in terms of monitoring for teachers [25]. To support secondary school teachers during VLE-supported lessons, a peripheral data visualisation system was designed and implemented in a three-week field study. Both qualitative and quantitative data were gathered and analysed through methodological triangulation in order to get an in-depth understanding about the use of the system by teachers. The key findings from our study were that the peripheral data visualisation tool, by being a distributed, highly visible system, was well integrated in the teachers' practice. The peripheral visualisation served as a trigger for teacher interventions where the teacher could confront the student's level of concentration and provide support when a student needs it. Furthermore, by offloading the secondary tasks of checking the students' level of concentration and progress to the visualisation, most teachers experienced more peace of mind and space to manage their primary teaching practice. Lastly, approximately 95% of 89 students experienced the data visualisation as neutral or motivating, while 5.7% of the students experienced violation of privacy by this medium.

Participating in physical activity (PA) is beneficial for adolescents' physical and mental development. Therefore, many studies have been conducted to design and evaluate interactive interventions to facilitate adolescents' PA. Despite the knowledge produced by this large number of studies, the field of Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) still lacks a comprehensive set of guidelines to guide our design processes, help us make informed design decisions, as well as provide niche for innovation. This paper reports a systematic literature review of studies on technology-supported interventions in adolescents' PA. We reviewed 25 design related studies in HCI over the past 10 years, analyzing 1) the process phases of design practice, 2) the design requirements and related design decisions, and 3) how these phases and requirements are internally related to each other and what are their influence on design value. Our findings suggest four design phases with seven design requirements and its corresponding design decisions emerged in the process of design. Furthermore, we outline a framework to demonstrate the internal relations of design requirements. We generalize opportunities and challenges for supporting the aforementioned design decisions making, and implementing the findings for future design and research on technology-supported adolescents' PA.

This paper explores teachers' expected and perceived gains from classroom participation in design projects. The results indicate that teachers hope the experience will be fun for the children, and that it will increase both children's and their own knowledge about technology. Although they consider learning goals important, these do not necessarily have to be communicated to the children, since the teachers experience that the children are learning several skills anyway. However, early involvement in the definition of learning goals could make participation more beneficial. The teachers also see several gains from partication for themselves, especially related to using a design approach in the classroom. We discuss the implications of these finding and suggest a way to increase the user gains for both children and teachers by considering the opportunity to use classroom participation as a way to support teachers' competence development, thereby fulfilling the promise of mutual learning as advocated in Participatory Design.

In this workshop, we invite researchers to jointly explore how the Child-Computer Interaction (CCI) field can establish intermediate-level knowledge, being a kind of design knowledge that resides in the realm between the design of particular artifacts and theories. In this full day workshop we want to invite (1) researchers and designers who position themselves as producing intermediate-level knowledge (2) people in the field of design research who have not necessarily thought about their work as producing intermediate-level knowledge. Together we will discuss the pros and cons of different kinds of intermediate-level knowledge and how we can promote the creation of these kinds of knowledge in the CCI field.

Physical Education (PE) is beneficial for students' mental and physical health, however, teenagers are increasingly becoming less motivated to actively participate in the current form of PE. Motivational studies show that collective physical activity augmented by playful interactions could encourage more participation and social engagement in physical activities (PA). In this paper, we present a within-subject field study with 20 teenagers formed into five groups sized equally. The study is conducted using Shuttlezap, a prototype that provides real-time playful audio augmentation to the process of the activity. Results show that the teenagers enjoyed playful audio augmentation and were socially engaged with an enhancement of their perception of competence. By further comparing the conditions between with and without the audio augmentation, we found that the playful audio augmentation positively contributed to the playfulness in terms of perceived relaxation and expression. We conclude with design implications for social play in the context of PE for teenagers.

Design-based learning (DBL) is attracting increasing attention for its potential to support informal learning, and as a way to enhance science and technology education at schools. However, related research has not yet considered the emotions children experience during DBL and how these affect the learning process. We report a case study aimed at developing a deeper understanding of children's emotional experience during DBL. In total 9 children (12-13 years old) are involved in this case study. In order to assess children's emotions during DBL lessons we used a self-reporting non-verbal instrument (the emotion card, which adapted from Five Degrees of Happiness Smiley Face Likert) and a verbal instrument (the Geneva Emotion Wheel Questionnaire, which contains 16 emotions). In addition, a group interview probed into the role of children's emotion during DBL. We discuss the methodological challenges exposed in this study, which will need to be addressed in future studies regarding the measurement of children's emotions in DBL.

In this paper we examine the challenges of introducing learning goals in Participatory Design (PD) activities in a school context. In order to increase the transparency of mutual learning in accordance with traditional PD values, we argue that learning through design approaches can inspire us to actively formulate learning goals, stage activities and include reflection as an integral part in the PD activity in order to meet those learning goals. We tested this approach in several master student projects, where the students were required to involve children in schools in the design of a technology. Our data analysis is based on their written reports as well as a specific exam question. We found that defining good learning goals was hard, but useful, especially when designing and discussing informed consent forms with teachers. Staging activities in order to meet the learning goals was possible, although learning goals were sometimes derived from the activities. Finally, incorporating moments of reflection for children was still difficult for our students because they felt pressed for time. We present some of the advantages and problems so that practitioners can consider the added value of this approach.

In this paper we propose the Role Definition Matrix that helps authors to describe more precisely the involvement of children in the design process. Although the previously defined roles for children (user, tester, informant, and design partner) have had a positive impact on researchers' and designers' awareness of the different ways to involve children in the design process, the Role Definition Matrix clarifies what was exactly done during a project, enables the reader to understand the credibility of the design decisions presented, avoids the misuse of certain terminology, and enables the consideration of trade-offs between the different roles. We propose to describe children's involvement in terms of the phases in design (Requirements, Design and Evaluation) and activity in relation to designer (Indirect, Feedback, Dialogue, Elaboration) during these phases. We present the Role Definition Matrix, including examples, and invite other researchers to use it as a tool to present their work.

When designing technologies for children, designers and researchers often implicitly or explicitly incorporate an interpretation of what a child is, how children learn, or how they play etc. in their design process. However, if these assumptions are not communicated explicitly, discussions among researchers and designers can become difficult because they are not based on the same premises. It is important for the IDC community to be explicit about what assumptions are being made about children and how technology can support their life, so we can develop better quality argumentations about our work.

This paper presents a study on children's play with tangible, interactive objects called MagicBuns. The aim of this study was to examine the support of different combinations of tangible feedback on different play behaviors and forms of play related to the different development stages of children. Furthermore, a comparison of the play behavior was made between children within the age category four till six and children in the age category ten till twelve years old. Creating guidelines for designing play objects which can grow along with the children. For this study MagicBuns were developed, that through rolling or shaking vibrate, create sounds or change color. Eighty children played in small groups in three different play sessions with these objects. These sessions showed that younger children engage more in parallel play, making use of one feedback modality and simple interaction rules, while older children prefer more complexity. They integrate multiple interaction rules and feedback modalities in their games.

Three different design research topics are presented in this article: how to design social and active play for teenagers, how to design for openended 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.

Open-ended play with interactive objects provides children with the freedom to construct their own rules, goals and meaning. Instead of games with strict rules, open-ended play designs offer interaction opportunities as a trigger for creating personalized games. The process of developing these designs differs from designs with predefined use. This paper presents the further development of a design approach on how to design for open-ended play. We give an overview of related work and analyze eight existing open-ended play designs. Next, interviews with design students are discussed that illustrate the process of developing open-ended play designs. As a conclusion, we describe our design approach for open-ended play, including an improved definition of open-ended play, an overview of which design parameters have to be considered and advice for tailoring a design process to consider these parameters.

This one-day workshop will bring together instructors who teach Interaction Design & Children at a university level from a wide spectrum of disciplines and research communities (HCI, Engineering, Design, education, Psychology and Communications). Our goal is to explore the various current ways IDC is taught, and to discuss and develop a core syllabus of literature and teaching activities for the benefit of the IDC community. Topics discussed will include: various disciplines that house IDC and their effect and needs, best practices for IDC teaching methods, and core literature (both disciplinary and multidisciplinary).

There is a wealth of theoretical knowledge about the developmental abilities and skills of children. However, this knowledge is not readily accessible to designers of interactive products. In this paper, we present the requirements, design and evaluation of developmentally situated design (DSD) cards. DSD cards are a design tool that makes age specific information about children's developing cognitive, physical, social, and emotional abilities readily accessible for designers. Initial requirements were elicited through interviews with design practitioners and students. The cards were evaluated through a design-in-use study in which design students used the cards to address three different design problems. Our analysis of observational notes and post-design interviews revealed how the cards' characteristics enabled different kinds of uses including framing, orienting, inspiring, informing, integrating and constraining. We conclude with a discussion of possible refinements and an analysis of the strengths and weaknesses of our approach.

This workshop, following one with the same name held at Mobile HCI 2010, aims at further exploring different approaches and challenges in studying playfulness as a mode of interacting with mobile technology.

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.

In this paper we describe a case study in which we examine how to develop playful persuasive solutions to motivate older adults to maintain or increase their social and physical activities. By including various stakeholders (older adults, family, and care givers) and by designing for transitions in life we intend to create solutions that can be used by many different user groups. Based on a playful interaction framework and user studies we are designing playful persuasive solutions that incorporate social and physical activities as mutual motivators. Furthermore, the persuasive solutions should be relevant for the life transitions of losing partners or friends, of having to move to a care facility and of declining physical and cognitive capabilities. We describe our experiences with involving older adults in a design process. Finally, we present our initial concept the ‘Activator’, that provides awareness about upcoming activities and own performances and goals, and provides opportunities for older adults based on physical or social motivators to keep and extend their social circle, and to perform activities of lower and higher physical demand.

Products can support user groups in social interaction and/or physical play in various ways. Depending on the requirements and needs of specific user groups and contexts of use, different approaches are applied to create successful designs. This special issue contains papers that describe designs for children, adults and elderly for sports, home and outdoor contexts. The papers in this issue explore how technology can contribute to enhancing user experiences in terms of social interaction and physical activities. Knowledge from very diverse research areas, such as, social psychology, persuasive technology, child development, human–robot interaction, and creativity is used as an inspiration source for the various projects.

This paper describes three design values that we apply for designing playful interactions. Interactive play objects can stimulate social interaction and physical play by providing motivating feedback to players’ behavior; they can allow players to create their own game goals and rules in an open-ended play context and support social player interaction patterns. This design approach is illustrated by six design cases in which our assumptions were examined in various play contexts. The results show that the application of these design values can lead to rich and appealing innovative play concepts. Players can create a wide range of (physical) games using open-ended play objects, and properties of the play objects, such as being personal or shared, influence the type of social interaction.

In this paper, we describe our design research on tangible play objects that stimulate social and physical play. We illustrate our work by describing a design case about an open-ended play object for children called the ColorFlare. The ColorFlare is an object that detects the player's movements and provides light feedback and that can communicate with other ColorFlares. A user test is described that examined how children use the ColorFlare to collaboratively create various (physical) games. We relate our research to definitions of embodied interaction, for example by describing how children allocate meaning to the interaction behavior of the play objects and jointly create diverse games during the play sessions.

An Intelligent Playground is an environment with interactive objects that, using advanced technology such as sensors and actuators, react to the interaction with the children and actively encourage children to play. Thus, an intelligent playground stimulates children to move and play together. In this way, it provides for a healthy alternative for popular pastimes such as computer games and television.\nWe propose a design research agenda for Intelligent Playgrounds, identifying key issues regarding the design of these playgrounds: social interaction, simplicity, challenge, goals and feedback. We illustrate these issues by referring extensively to related work in this area. In addition, we present our design approach, initial findings and future plans on the basis of two case studies of new intelligent playground concepts.

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.

Children are really intrigued by television and computers. However, the interaction with these products hardly requires any form of body movement. This paper presents two case studies of product designs that provide more opportunities for children to enjoy physical play activities.

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.

This paper describes an experiment to determine which personality characteristics can be used to predict whether a child will make an effective participant in a user test, both in terms of the number of identified problems and the percentage of verbalised problems. Participant selection based on this knowledge can make user testing with young children more effective. The study shows that the personality characteristic Curiosity influences the number of identified problems; a combination of the personality characteristics Friendliness and Extraversion influences the percentage of verbalised problems. Furthermore, the study shows that selection of children based on these criteria does not lead to finding an unrepresentative sample of the product's problems.

This paper describes a study which examines whether a predictive evaluation method (SEEM) is suitable to assess products for an older age group than for which the evaluation method was originally developed. SEEM stands for Structured Expert Evaluation Method and is an analytical evaluation method especially developed for assessing the fun and usability of young children's educational computer games (children from 5 to 7 years old). In the present study SEEM was applied to assess educational computer games for children between 9 and 11 years old. Outcomes on scores for thoroughness (whether SEEM finds all problems), validity (whether SEEM makes predictions that are likely to be true) and appropriateness (whether SEEM is applied correctly) were compared. The results show that the trends for the thoroughness and the validity are the same for the two different age groups; however SEEM scores a bit better for the oldest age group. The appropriateness scores are about the same for the two age groups. The results indicate that SEEM can also be applied for assessing educational computer games for children between 9 and 11 years old.

'Designing for usability' refers to the activity of incorporating research about how people use interactive interfaces into the design process. In our specific case, it refers to designers of children's products taking into consideration how the children use different software that they encounter.Many organizations that develop new interactive environments for children do not incorporate usability studies, or they do so without a good understanding of the complexity and consequences of these issues. The end results are websites and programs that children cannot use - and therefore will not use. In some cases many of the educational benefits and creative ideas developed are never utilized, because children do not pass the interface hurdle.The participating panel members have unique views about the role and value of usability studies on the design process. With an emphasis on the design of online environments, they will discuss their personal experiences of designing for usability, and will offer their understanding of the significance of usability in the design of interactive environments for kids.

An exploratory study is described looking at children's ability to provide verbal comments in usability evaluation sessions. Six evaluation methods were applied to test an interactive toy by children aged 6 and 7. The results show that most verbal comments were gathered during Active Intervention sessions, by asking children questions during tasks. Unexpectedly, the Co-Discovery sessions were less successful, because children did not collaborate very well. Children also provided useful comments in the Thinking Aloud, Retrospection, and Peer Tutoring sessions. They could reflect on their actions at the end of Retrospection sessions, and were able to teach other children how to interact with the toy in Peer Tutoring sessions.

This paper describes a design method, novel to the domain of interaction design, for gathering user requirements from children called the KidReporter method. The KidReporter method was chosen and further refined based on assumptions about User-Centred Design. The method was considered to be suitable and appealing for children in terms of participating in design. Two school classes participated in making a newspaper about a zoo, to gather requirements for the design process of an interactive educational game. The educational game was developed to educate children about animals while walking through a zoo. The KidReporter method's main strengths are that it combines many techniques for eliciting information from children, such as interviews, drawing and making pictures. In this paper we describe how the KidReporter method was applied, in what manner it was successful and what we would do differently next time.

This editorial paper introduces an emerging area for human–computer interaction research, which concerns interaction design and children. To avoid treating children as a homogeneous user group, it discusses some perspectives on their development, their use of technology for entertainment and education and, finally, how to involve children in the various stages of the design process.

The paper motivates the need to acquire methodological knowledge for involving children as test users in usability testing. It introduces a methodological framework for delineating comparative assessments of usability testing methods for children participants. This framework consists in three dimensions: (1) assessment criteria for usability testing methods, (2) characteristics describing usability testing methods and, finally, (3) characteristics of children that may impact upon the process and the result of usability testing. Two comparative studies are discussed in the context of this framework along with implications for future research.

The importance of an early and on-going focus on users in interactive system design is widely accepted. However, in practice, involving users poses many problems and requires designers to balance conflicting demands. Various factors can hinder or ease the involvement of users. This paper reports a case study involving the design of a bespoke application and gives a detailed account of the obstacles and facilitators to user involvement encountered during the design activity. The obstacles and facilitators are presented in terms of issues such as contacting and selecting users, motivating users, facilitating and mediating meetings and offering points of focus for user contributions. We report and contrast the views of various stakeholders in the design process, and supplement these with our own observations as non-participant observers. Finally, we discuss issues raised by the study and draw out a number of lessons for the CHI community.

To provide input for the development of user interface design support the authors distributed questionnaires to people involved in the development of user interfaces in The Netherlands. They studied the background and experience of designers of user interfaces, the contexts in which they worked, the design support they currently used and what new or improved design support they would need. The results indicated two areas that require further study: how to gather information about users and applications. When developing design support for these areas it might be useful to take into account the finding that designers work in a wide range of design practices, each with their own constraints on interface design practice.

An experiment was designed to determine whether speech input is a valuable alternative or addition to manual input. Subjects used both speech and mouse input for control purposes in a document-annotation system. Speech recognition was realized by a speaker-dependent speech-recognition board. In separate sessions, subjects used either a mouse or speech interface, and comparisons were made between the two media in performance speed, number of commands, and number of errors. In a third session, subjects were free to use either input medium, and measures included both objective (usage) and subjective (questionnaire) preferences for the two media. The main results were that: (1)9 out of 24 subjects used speech more than the mouse when they were free to use both; (2) 21% of the subjects preferred speech control, because it allowed other devices to be operated manually; and (3) 37% of the subjects preferred to control the system with both input devices available. Speech can be a valuable addition to other input media enabling users to adapt their choice of media to specific task situations.