Co-designing with Children

Today was read the article "Co-designing with Children", by  Catalina Naranjo-Bock for the site UX Matters (site), which deals with methods for research and development of new products developed in partnership with children. According to the article "Children are naturals for co-designing. In the right context with the right tools, kids have no problem unleashing their wildest dreams and ideas to create previously unimagined product concepts". She presents the "Alison Druin’s roles for children in designing new technologies" that shows us that at different stages in a product development cycle, co-designing with children may include some combination of all of these roles.

In the text, Bock suggest different readings and supplementary texts and also suggests steps for co-design with children, it would be:

1. Developing self-awareness

2.On site research 

3. Generative research

4. Conception of the product.

Plus she talks about research methods online and talks about the stimuli given to children during the sessions: "All the co-design sessions require the use of stimuli or a toolkit that facilitates discussion and spurs creative thinking...the creation of these toolkits requires secondary research into psychological and developmental guidelines...if you are conducting user research sessions at frequent intervals throughout a product development cycle, you'll be able to refine your toolkit."

Concerning to the children's age ranges the author comments that for children between 3 and 6 years "conducting co-design session with this age group is challenging Especially because of the children's developmental stage. For children of this age, more than any other, it is important to invite parents or teachers to the sessions, because they can help you to fully understand what the children are saying, doing, or making and can provide greater context. She finishes with some final important thoughts:

You should have clear objectives and research questions.

Follow a moderator guide and research protocol—although this can be more flexible in this case than for more traditional research methods.

Clearly explain your research project to all participants and their caregivers, as well as what you’ll do with the data that you obtain.

Analyze the results of your research as rigorously as you would for any other research project. In this case, the data is very visual and tangible, and this helps you to illustrate your results when presenting them to stakeholders. You can apply synthesis methods of analysis like affinity diagramming or parallel clustering using your initial research questions.

Listen carefully to what children are saying. Generally, children will come to the sessions with a high degree of enthusiasm and have the expectation that they will be heard, as well as preconceptions about how you’ll use their ideas. It is important to communicate clearly that you will not use all of their ideas and that most ideas get transformed radically during the design process. Throughout the co-design process, it is also important to make sure children are feeling comfortable with the way you’re asking them to share their ideas.

"Discovering emotions, values, ideas, 

dreams, desires and ideal situations is a

 crucial part of the user research during the 

early stages of the design process"