Interacting with Computers 15 (2003) 141149 www.elsevier.

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Editorial

Interaction design and children

Abstract 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, nally, how to involve children in the various stages of the design process. q 2003 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.
Keywords: User-centred design; Children; Usability; Fun; User characteristics; Technology

1. Introduction A central tenet for user centred design practices is that there is no design that ts all, but rather design should be driven by knowledge of the target users. However, mainstream research in human computer interaction, has often generalised in terms of theories, models, methodologies and sometimes guidelines that are articulated in a manner neutral to users (perhaps assuming middle aged adult, fully able workers). The growing interest in universal accessibility has brought to the forefront considerations of different target user groups, disabilities, and different cultures. In the last 10 years, a growing amount of attention is paid to children as a special user group (Bruckman and Bandlow, 2003), which is growing in numbers and in nancial terms (McNeal, 1992). A responsible stance of the industry should also seek to design good quality products which contribute positively to childrens development and health (Wartella et al., 2000; Cordes and Miller, 2000). Research has tried to address the different interests and capabilities of children, how they can be involved in the design of technology and in developing interaction technologies to suit their needs. The sections in this editorial discuss some key issues for this growing research eld. Furthermore, it introduces a collection of ve papers that were presented at the rst conference on Interaction Design and Children, an event that took place in August 2002, at Eindhoven, The Netherlands (Bekker et al., 2002). Children are not a homogeneous group for which a single theory and practice may be recommended. Section 2 discusses how childrens skills, needs, knowledge and their
0953-5438/03/$ - see front matter q 2003 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/S0953-5438(03)00004-3

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relation to technology change with growing up. Section 3 discusses how user centred design can be oriented to children. A successful study of their interaction with technology requires that we understand the purpose and context for which children will interact with technology as well as their own needs. Section 4 discusses two such contexts that are crucial for children: entertainment and learning. The editorial concludes with some reections about the relation between mainstream HCI research and this budding sub-eld that focuses on children.

2. Characterising children At different ages, childrens relation to interactive technologies varies, reecting their changing interests, humour, characters, contexts and settings. The discussion below distinguishes four age groups, or stages of development for children. The four stages have been adopted from Acuff and Reiher (1997) who have based these stages on a synthesis of cognitive, social, emotional, moral and language development perspectives in the context of marketing to children. Within these stages we discuss the developing skills, needs and knowledge of children. The division between stages are approximate as there exist large individual differences between children and the various development theories also assume different boundaries. For each age group, the relationship between the characteristics of the age group and certain design features is discussed.

2.1. The dependency/exploratory stage (ages birth 2 years) This is a stage of learning, exploration and discovery. Children enjoy repetitive sensorimotor actions, they cannot yet play together, preferring parallel play. They have mostly physiological, love and safety needs. Products for children up to two should be based on simple concepts, give a feeling of safety and stimulate learning. Their form should be round and support active exploration (Acuff and Reiher, 1997). Babies speak their rst words around the rst year. Infants start to experiment with making sounds and developing the right intonation and sound patterns (birth to 1 year). Vocabulary size develops from about 50 words for a toddler to several hundred words by the age of two. Also, children of this age group begin to develop conversational strategies such as turntaking (1 2 years) (Berk, 2000). An example of a product for this age group is an electronic activity centre, which has the form of a tablet, with pictures, buttons and sliders. By various press, spin and slide activities the child can practice ne motor skills, hand eye hand coordination and practice initial language skills. Such products often have friendly colours and pictures of fantasylike characters and animals. They enable children to become acquainted with simple sounds and words, for example in relation to animals, letters, numbers and colours. Finally, such products stimulate problem-solving activities with action reaction activities.

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2.2. The emerging-autonomy stage (ages 3 7) In this stage, children enjoy fantasy and magic. Children of this age group are fairly self-centred, doing a lot of parallel play. They have a need for stimulation, love and safety, though they are developing a greater need for autonomy. Simplicity is still important for products for this age group. Products should be based on concepts that are not too abstract and are tuned to the not yet fully developed reasoning skills of this age group. Since ideas based on the past or future are still difcult to understand, concepts around themes playing in the present and close to home are most appealing (Acuff and Reiher, 1997). Between the age of 2 6 years children develop their knowledge about letters, words and books. They slowly get an understanding of rhyming and alliteration (words sounding the same at their beginnings or ends), blending and synthesizing (breaking words apart, or combining words into new words). They start to characters into words. Between 3 and 6, children start to use more complex grammatical sentences in which two sentences are combined using connective words such as and or because. Between 3 and 5 they start developing conversational strategies such as adjusting speech in relation to social expectations and between 5 and 9 the ability to gradually change the topics of discussion (Berk, 2000). Children in this age group also develop their initial writing skills, starting with being able to scribble single characters around the age of four. Then they develop the ability to write words and create sentences and leave spaces between words. Looking at educational games for this age group also provides some insights into their developing skills and interests of this age groups. For example, computer games for this age group are often placed in the context of a fantasy world, in which the children have to search for items that enable them to reach a nal goal, such as rescuing somebody, nding a treasure, etc. Along the way the children get to solve riddles and play games that allow them to practice for example basic language, musical and math skills. The meaning of onscreen buttons is mostly depicted using symbols and animations, with limited use of words and explanations.

2.3. The rule/role stage (ages 8 12) Interests of children in this age group shift gradually from fantasy to reality. They play in pairs and groups and become more interested in competition. Children start developing a sense of logic and reasoning and simple abstractions. They have a need for acceptance and success. Finally, there is a shift from a main inuence of parents and school to a bigger inuence from friends. Products for children between 8 and 12 years old can be more complex and challenging; also variation and competition play an important role. They become more aware of the age-appropriateness of products and more sensitive to acceptance by their peers. Since concepts such as the past and the future can be grasped, themes such as science ction become more popular (Acuff and Reiher, 1997). Around the age of 8, children shift from learning to read, to reading to learn. From 8 till 12 children start to understand more abstract terms and longer, more complex sentences

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and they develop the ability to critically analyse what they read. They also develop the ability to signal subtle differences using pronunciation. Over the years children develop an increasingly large vocabulary and understanding of multiple meanings of words (6 10 years). Subsequently, they become more procient at spelling words correctly, writing complete sentences, and in using capitals and punctuations (7 9 years). Children of the age of nine and 10 are still not very good at planning their story and start telling the story straight away. Examples of current products, are laptops or handheld computing devices targeting this age group. These devices look more adult and serious-like than those designed for younger ages, e.g. they use less bright colours such as dark blue, silver and black. These products often provide complex interfaces, like multiple functions under one button and nested menu-structures. The functionality allows them to be more autonomous and to keep in touch with their friends. In addition, the use of language can be more complex and abstract.

2.4. Early and late adolescence (ages 13 and up) In this phase children develop their abstract thinking and logical skills. They become increasingly independent of peers and their parents. Their needs focus mostly on needs of identity and sexuality. In the age range of 13 15, activities become both more socially and more goal-oriented, such as sports, school clubs and social activities with friends. Adolescents can handle abstract problems and complexity. They relate most strongly with more realistic characters and prefer realistic settings over a fantasy world. From 14, they learn to deal with more than one point of view. They are able to understand more difcult concepts and develop the ability to integrate new ideas, points of views and concepts. Vocabulary size develops to over 40.000 words in adolescence (Berk, 2000). They develop an increased understanding of irony and sarcasm (11 years and older). Products for this age group are very similar to products designed for adults, though they may be specially designed to target this age group, e.g. mobile phones and MP3 players. They have to relate to activities that appeal to this age group such as sports and social activities. The products need to have a realistic look and contribute to the users image. For example, a wide range of mobile phone covers with pictures of famous cartoon characters is available to tailor a phone to the intended image of the user.

3. Designing for children Children, like adults, often use technology to perform some tasks. In such cases, usability and tness for purpose are crucial. While the actual design challenges may differ, it is clear that HCI methodologies can be extended and specialised to address the needs of children. Two major topics in the context of designing for children are:

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age-specic interaction styles, e.g. how to structure menus, the size of the on screen objects, fonts, the suitability of input devices, etc. and the involvement of children in the design process. Research in the former is very sparse. For example, Inkpen (2001) reports that point and click is preferred by children 9 13 over drag and drop. Different text input techniques suitable for children are discussed by Read et al. (2001). Compared to corresponding research for adults this research is still rather limited. It will perhaps require extensive empirical testing and evaluation, to gather empirically based guidelines as to what could be appropriate combinations of tasks (e.g. selection, input of text, setting a value in a range), and input/output devices for different ages of children. Further, advances in input technology, e.g. in the area of tangible user interfaces may offer novel opportunities for engaging children to interact with technology. For example Stienstra and Hoonhout (2002), examine the success of novel input devices designed to t young childrens musical and motor skills. Another critical issue concerns the various ways in which children can be involved in design. Fig. 1, illustrates a model introduced by Druin (2002) to discuss the relation of the various roles children can play during the design process. The inner circle represents the traditional role of children as end-users of technology, with no involvement in its design (an approach that is not commendable from a user centred design perspective). As we move from inner circles to outer circles in the diagram of Fig. 1, the role of children changes in two ways: First, it becomes more active and responsible and, second, children get involved in more stages of the design activity. A minimal and rather pragmatic requirement for user centred design is to involve children as testers of products, i.e. as participants in usability tests. The outer skin of the onion in Fig. 1, represents the more radical view that children should act as designers. This view, advocated by Druin, is used in the study reported by Hourcade, et al. in this issue, for the design of an interactive digital library for children. Involving children as designers offers several challenges and opportunities and some debate surrounds the issues as to how participatory design techniques should be adapted. A more moderate view, that subscribes to the same

Fig. 1. The relation of children to technology can vary simply being the end-user of a technology that is designed by adults, to a very active involvement as a member of the design team. Figure adapted from Druin (2002).

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aspirations about involving children but addresses some of the practical limitations of doing so, is for children to be involved as informants in the design process (Scaife and Rogers, 1999). Other research in this area explores the suitability of design techniques for involving children in specic phases of design. The paper by Bekker et al in this issue, examines the use of an early requirements gathering technique, called KidReporter, in which children contribute to the design process by creating a newspaper about the activity that the product under design aims to support. Limited methodological advice has been published to date regarding the adaptation of usability testing procedures for children of different ages. Microsoft researchers who have been working on software products for children have proposed guidelines for usability testing with children (Hanna et al., 1997) and survey techniques measuring childrens attitudes and preferences (Hanna et al., 1999). Considering the importance of the topic and its practical utility there are surprisingly few research results published to guide the practitioner. Two papers in this special issue attempt to ll this apparent gap in current research results. Markopoulos and Bekker in this issue discuss usability testing methods which have been developed and established for adult users, and how well they fare when the test participants are children. Hoysniemi, Hamalainen and Turkki describe Peer Tutoring, a usability testing method, specially created for children. The method is based on adapting a classroom teaching technique, and involves peers teaching each other how to use a software product during the usability test. We expect signicant advances in the near future in usability testing for children and perhaps some useful cross over with usability testing methodology for adults. For example, the peer tutoring technique can potentially prove to be useful also for adult users, as well.

4. Designing for education and play Compared to adults, children interact with technology mostly in relation to two activities: education/learning and play. The more traditional HCI considerations about usability and usefulness need to be extended and specialised with some consideration of how to create successful learning activities. Theories of learning can be applied, to guide design of relevant products. For example, adopting a behaviourist view (Skinner, 1968) one might try to encourage learning through repeated stimulus and reinforcement. This not only suggests a certain type of activity to be supported by technology, but provides a theoretical framework for studying interaction and for qualifying successful educational activities, e.g. the extent to which appropriate responses are obtained from given stimuli. Adopting a constructivist view (Papert, 1980) would suggest that children acquire knowledge through experience. Contrary to the behaviourist view, less predictable activities by the children may result and learning becomes more personalised. Technologies for learning are seen as construction kits rather than instruction programs. Successful learning is correspondingly harder to operationalise and to design for. Soloway et al. (1994) suggest that construction kits and activities should involve familiar object and actions allowing new ideas to be connected to extant knowledge and intuition and secondly, construction kits should make certain ideas and ways of thinking salient so that

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users are likely to make connections to them. In the recent years a lot of effort has been put into developing technologies that will support learning in a constructionist manner: these may include online communities, e.g. programmable bricks (Resnick et al., 1996) MOOSE Crossing (Bruckman, 1994), or programming for children (Smith and Cypher, 1999). Similar issues arise when considering how to successfully support less task-oriented activities such as play. The emphasis with such activities is not necessarily on usability, but also on having pleasure and fun (Blythe et al., 2003, Green and Jordan, 2002). According to Jordan, the relationship between functionality, usability and pleasure can be described as a hierarchy of needs (Jordan, 2000), indicating that when a lower level need has been fullled, the subsequent level should be addressed. Determining how knowledge about play, engagement and fun can be applied to design for children, will play a crucial role in the development of this area. Many researchers view enjoyment as relating to engagement (Csikszentmihalyi, 1990) which seems appropriate for many of the playful activities of children. Maintaining this engagement can guide the design of interaction, e.g. how to maintain the right level of challenge, how to provide clear indications of action and progress, but can also guide the assessment of enjoyment throughout the activity. Enjoyment can of course relate to social activities and to learning activities for which such a theoretical construction may need to be extended. Many researchers have explored the relationship between fun, play and learning, reasoning that fun contributes to being motivated to pursue an activity, and as such can also contribute to learning effectively (e.g. Malone and Lepper, 1987; Prensky, 2000). In this volume Price, Scaife and Rogers, discuss the design of technology for supporting playful learning and describe ve core elements for playful learning: (1) exploration through interaction; (2) engagement; (3) reection; (4) imagination, creativity, and thinking at different levels of abstraction and (5) collaboration. Their case study traces evidence of these elements in the interaction of children with an educational game that supports interaction through tangibles. Other examples of research on how children learn when interacting with technology is the work on developing experimental prototypes for supporting children to tell stories, (e.g. Sherman et al., 2001; Cassell et al., 2000) and on the development of interactive multimedia environments to practice narrative skills (Plowman et al., 1999). Advantages for the children can be social development and language development.

5. Concluding remarks The eld of human computer interaction is approximately two decades old, at least measured by some prominent conferences in the eld, e.g. the 20th ACM CHI annual conference or by referring to the seminal publication of Card et al. (1983). Considerable debate has been published regarding the multidisciplinary nature of this eld and its scope. The methods of scientic investigation and the philosophical orientations of researchers within this discipline may be as open to debate today, as they were 20 years ago. Nevertheless, a solid body of substantive and methodological knowledge has resulted, as a contribution to the HCI discipline problem: how best to design the interaction between humans and systems to ensure effective work, entertainment and education (Long, 1996).

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The discussion in the previous sections, highlights the challenges for the further development of this discipline, when we focus on children. Learning and entertainment rather than productivity are important considerations. However, these considerations are equally relevant when considering technology for adults. Advocates of constructionist learning, have proposed a similar change in the point of view for adult users (cf. Soloway et al., 1994): i.e. moving from user centred design to a learner centred design, where technology aims to facilitate personal learning. It is perhaps a sign of maturity for the eld of human computer interaction, which at rst focused almost exclusively on productivity, to have shifted its focus to include learning and entertainment for adult users too. Usability is still an important consideration, as it may be a crucial stumbling block for learning or enjoyment. However, standard user centred design approaches need to be adapted when we consider the specic needs of children. Current design guideline compilations still focus mostly on adult users and for that matter, the western European adult at the workplace. Recently, a compilation of guidelines for web sites for children was published (Gilutz and Nielsen, 2002). Such adaptations of research and practice to the diversity of technology users, as for example work the elderly, the disabled, addressing cultural inuences are a sign of maturation for this eld. (See for example, the double special issue of this journal on the role of culture in the globalisation of human computer interfaces 9(3) and 9(4), 14(3) special issue on universal usability). Methodological and substantive knowledge that is proposed to solve the discipline problem for HCI need in the future to focus on special target user groups, addressing their special characteristics and needs. We expect research that considers interaction of children and technology to grow in volume and depth, as we anticipate similar developments for other target user groups.

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Panos Markopoulos* Mathilde Bekker Industrial Design, Technical University of Eindhoven, Den Dolech 2, Eindhoven 5600 MB, The Netherlands E-mail address: p.markopoulos@tue.nl

* Corresponding author.