The Co-Design with Kids Toolkit is a new, freely available web-based resource that brings together decades of research on the academic method of Cooperative Inquiry with the purpose of making co-design approaches and techniques accessible to a wider audience. Building from expert and potential user interviews, as well as a thorough review of currently available toolkits on co-design, we have designed the website to provide short written and video summaries of critical elements of the philosophy of co-design, how to implement techniques of co-design, and examples of what co-designing with kids actually looks like and produces. Rooted in peer-reviewed research, we intend for this resource to support academic, industry, and practice in understanding how children can be equal stakeholders in the design of their technology, creating more inclusive environments for design and development. This demo will highlight the creation of the toolkit and its components, with time for discussion of application and feedback.

Children have been involved in technology co-design processes for several decades. While previous studies suggest potential benefits to child participants, research has not been conducted regarding the impact of these design methods on the adult designers involved in these processes. We conducted a retrospective online survey with 18 adults who have participated in co-design with children on technologies intended for children. Responses about their experiences, learnings, and recommendations for the process were synthesized. Overall, the participants perceived their experiences of partnering with children and hearing their perspectives to be valuable both personally and professionally as well as for the products’ usability for children. Participants also noted some challenges or areas for improvement for the co-design process. Areas for future work may include a more formal study of the impacts of these experiences on adults and on the technologies developed via co-design with children.

The direct gains children perceive from their membership on Participatory Design (PD) teams are seldom the focus of research studies. Yet, how HCI practitioners choose to include children in PD methods may influence the value participants see in their participation, and thereafter the outcomes of PD processes. To understand what gains former child members of a PD team perceive from their participation we conducted a two-part study. In Study 1 we surveyed and interviewed child alumni of a PD team to determine gains that are perceived first-hand. In Study 2 we obtained a secondary perspective by surveying and interviewing parents of alumni. We report on the perceived gains to former participants that were identified and described in these two studies-including collaboration, communication, design process knowledge, and confidence. We reflect on our findings through discussions of the continued applicability of gains, new opportunities, and implications for PD practitioners and methods.

Participatory Design (PD) gives users a voice in the design of technologies they are meant to use. When PD methods are adapted for research with children, design teams need to address additional issues of ethical accountability (e.g., adult-child power relations). While researchers have taken measures to ensure ethical accountability in PD research with children, to our knowledge there has been no work examining how former child design partners view ethical issues surrounding their participation. In this work we ask: How do children view ethical issues around their role on Participatory Design teams? We present findings from surveys and interviews with 12 former child design partners. Findings, identified by the former participants themselves, outline: (i) balancing attribution and anonymity, (ii) promoting ongoing consent and dissent, and (iii) cultivating a balanced design partnership. From these findings we recommend practices for researchers and designers of children's technologies that align with participant views.

Electronic textile (e-textile) toolkits have been successful in broadening participation in STEAM-related activities, in expanding perceptions of computing, and in engaging users in creative, expressive, and meaningful digital-physical design. While a range of well-designed e-textile toolkits exist (e.g., LilyPad), they cater primarily to adults and older children and have a high barrier of entry for some users. We are investigating new approaches to support younger children (K-4) in the creative design, play, and customization of e-textiles and wearables without requiring the creation of code. This demo paper presents one such example of ongoing work: MakerShoe, an e-textile platform for designing shoe-based interactive wearable experiences. We discuss our two participatory design sessions as well as our initial prototype, which uses single-function magnetically attachable electronic modules to support circuit creation and the design of responsive, interactive behaviors.

Physical movement has the potential to enhance learning activities. To investigate how movement can be incorporated into children's mobile language learning, we designed and evaluated two versions of a German vocabulary game called Scenic Words. The first version used movementbased dynamic peephole navigation, which requires physical movement of the arms, while the second version used touchbased static peephole navigation, which only requires standard touchscreen interactions; static peepholes are the status quo interaction technique for navigation, commonly found, for example, in map applications and games. To compare the two types of navigation and to assess children's reactions to dynamic peepholes, we conducted an inhome study with 16 children (ages 89). The children participated in pairs but individually played each version of the game on a mobile device. While results showed that the more familiar static peepholes were the preferred interaction style overall, participants became accustomed to the movementbased dynamic peepholes during the study. Participants noted that the dynamic peephole interaction became easier over time, and that it had some advantages such as for dragginganddropping elements in the game.

This paper discusses the challenges inherent in conducting research with young participants. Based on a series of three studies with children ranging in age from 7--17 as examples, the paper contains descriptions of participant recruitment approaches and challenges. Also included is a discussion of issues surrounding the retention of participants for longitudinal studies, including specific issues for participant retention and loss. Overall, this paper provides detailed experiences of the challenges of large-scale long-term field work with children, and provides guidance for others who are in similar research situations.

Cooperative Inquiry is a Participatory Design method that involves children (typically 7--11 years old) as full partners with adults in the design of technologies intended for use by children. For many years, child designers have worked together with adults in Cooperative Inquiry approaches. However, in the past children have not typically initiated the design problems tackled by the intergenerational team, nor have they acted in leadership roles by conducting design sessions-- until now. In this paper, we detail three case studies of Cooperative Inquiry in which children led the process of design, from initial problem formulation through one iteration of design review and elaboration. We frame our analysis from three perspectives on the design process: behaviors exhibited by child leaders and their fellow co-designers; supports required for child leaders; and views expressed by child leaders and their co-design cohort about the sessions that they led.

Face-to-face design with child and adult design partners is not always possible due to distant geographical locations or time differences. Yet we believe that the designs of children in areas not co-located with system builders, or who live in locations not easily accessed, are just as important and valid as children who are easily accessible especially when designing for a multinational audience. This paper reports on the prototype design process of DisCo, a computer-based design tool that enables intergenerational co-designers to collaborate online and asynchronously while being geographically distributed. DisCo contains tools that enable the designers to iterate, annotate, and communicate from within the tool. This tool was used to facilitate distributed co-design. We learned that children were less forgiving of their inability to draw on the computer than on paper, and they formed small, intergenerational design teams at their own locations when the technology did not work as they expected.

Concurrent collaboration is a critical skill for cognitive and social development. Tangible Flags is a system designed to facilitate collaboration and exploration, and bridge the gap between the physical and the digital. The system enables children to tag an item of interest in the real world with a flag, scan the flag, and create a corresponding digital artifact on a tablet computer. Another child can see the flag and its context, scan it, and view and modify the digital artifact in a form of collaboration. This paper describes a study that compares two Tangible Flag systems; a paper system and a tablet computer system. The study identifies several collaborative advantages of using the technology-based system, including increased awareness, more shared experiences, and longer time participating in activities.

This paper addresses how children can collaborate by leveraging the ubiquity of mobile devices. Specifically we investigate how children (ages 8--9) read and share children's stories using two collaborative configurations: content splitting and space sharing. Content splitting is where interface pieces (e.g. words, pictures) are split between two or more devices. Space sharing is where the same content (e.g. a document) is spread or shared across devices. The results point to an overall preference for the content splitting configuration. Supporting collaborative configurations on mobile devices can help overcome one of the most significant usability issues these devices face --- their limited screen space.

This paper discusses design iterations of Mobile Stories - a mobile technology that empowers children to collaboratively read and create stories. We present the design and discuss the impact of different collocated collaborative configurations for mobile devices including: content splitting and space sharing. We share design experiences that illustrate how Mobile Stories supports collaboration and mobility, and identify how the collocated collaborative configurations are best suited for reading and sharing tasks. We also identify how creative tasks foster more mobility and dynamic interactions between collaborators.

While there is a wealth of information about children's technology and the design processes used to create it, there is a dearth of information regarding how the children who participate in these design processes may be affected by their participation. In this paper, we motivate why studying this impact is important and look at the foundation provided by past research that touches on this topic. We conclude by briefly proposing methods appropriate for studying the impact of the design process on the children involved.

As technology for children becomes more mobile, social, and distributed, our design methods and techniques must evolve to better explore these new directions. This paper reports on "Layered Elaboration," a co-design technique created to support these evolving needs. .Layered Elaboration allows design teams to generate ideas through an iterative process in which each version leaves prior ideas intact while extending concepts. Layered Elaboration is a useful technique as it enables co-design to take place asynchronously and does not require much space or many resources. Our intergenerational team, including adults and children ages 7 -- 11 years old, used the technique to design both a game about history and a prototype of an instructional game about energy conservation.

Children are among the most frequent users of the Internet, yet searching and browsing the web can present many challenges. Studies over the past two decades on how children search were conducted with finite and pre-determined content found in CD-ROM applications, online digital libraries, and web directories. However, with the current popularity of the open Internet and keyword-based interfaces for searching it, more critical analysis of the challenges children face today is needed. This paper presents the findings of our initial study to understand how children ages 7, 9, and 11 search the Internet using keyword interfaces in the home. Our research has revealed that although today's children have been exposed to computers for most of their lives, spelling, typing, query formulation, and deciphering results are all still potential barriers to finding the information they need.

In order to design for children with special needs, we need to design with children with special needs. The inclusionary model proposed in this paper suggests that appropriate involvement of children with special needs in the design process begins with the level of involvement a team expects from children, and is additionally influenced by the nature and severity of the child's disability and the availability and intensity of support available to the child.

This paper describes research that investigates the use of a technology designed to support young children's collaborative artifact creation in outdoor environments. Collaboration while creating knowledge artifacts is an important part of children's learning, yet it can be limited while exploring outdoors. The construction of a joint representation often occurs in the classroom after the experience, where further investigation and observation of the environment is not possible. This paper describes a research study where collaborative technology was developed, used by children, and evaluated in an authentic setting --- a U.S. National Park.

The importance of play in young children's lives cannot be minimized. From teddy bears to blocks, children's experiences with the tools of play can impact their social, emotional, physical, and cognitive development. Today, the tools of play include desktop computers and computer-enhanced physical environments. In this paper, we consider the merits of desktop and physical environments for young children (4-6 years old), by comparing the same content-infused game in both contexts. Both quantitative and qualitative methods are used for data collection and analysis.

This paper sets forth a new technique for working with young children as design partners. Mixing ideas is presented as an additional Cooperative Inquiry design technique used to foster effective collaboration with young children (ages 4-6). The method emerged from our work with children on the Classroom of the Future project at the University of Maryland. A case study of this work is presented along with the implications of this method for future research.