TY - JOUR
T1 - Reflection and awareness in the design process
T2 - children ideating, programming and prototyping smart objects
AU - Gennari, Rosella
AU - Matera, Maristella
AU - Melonio, Alessandra
AU - Rizvi, Mehdi
AU - Roumelioti, Eftychia
N1 - Funding Information:
All children participated in the workshop on a voluntary basis, and their parents authorised their participation through a written consent form, approved by the ethical committee of Free University of Bozen-Bolzano. Post-workshop data processing was undertaken in aggregated and anonymous form so as to meet rules on data protection. Authors thank all participating children and their parents, without whom this work would have not been possible.
Funding Information:
The work reported in this paper was funded by means of: PRIN 2017 “EMPATHY: EMpowering People in deAling with internet of THings ecosYstems; SNaP 2019 “Smart Nature Protagonists”; the Smart Design 2020 research framework between the Free University of Bozen-Bolzano and Politecnico di Milano. Acknowledgments
Publisher Copyright:
© 2020, Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature.
PY - 2021/11
Y1 - 2021/11
N2 - Design of new technology with children has been widely investigated, and lately several workshops have been organised with children for designing novel IoT or smart objects, e.g., for smart cities or parks. Gradually, the research focus has shifted, from an analysis of the technology itself, which children help create, towards an analysis of children’s possible gains in design workshops. However, in spite of several recent efforts, it is still unclear what happens when children participate in diverse parts of a design process, ranging from ideation to prototyping. This paper investigates it, focussing on children’s gains in relation to their knowledge of design. A structured design workshop can help obtain such gains and analyse their achievements. Therefore this paper presents a structured design workshop with 27 children, aged from 11 to 14 years old, ideating, programming and prototyping smart objects for their town park. The workshops was structured and centred around a board-game with cards, so as to playfully make children reflect about design, and promote their awareness of what they were doing. Data were gathered in relation to children’s reflections from different perspectives, during the workshop, and in relation to their awareness of design, after the workshop. The analysis of the gathered data suggests that the workshop positively affected children’s reflections on design and awareness of design, giving indications for future work concerning critical design with children.
AB - Design of new technology with children has been widely investigated, and lately several workshops have been organised with children for designing novel IoT or smart objects, e.g., for smart cities or parks. Gradually, the research focus has shifted, from an analysis of the technology itself, which children help create, towards an analysis of children’s possible gains in design workshops. However, in spite of several recent efforts, it is still unclear what happens when children participate in diverse parts of a design process, ranging from ideation to prototyping. This paper investigates it, focussing on children’s gains in relation to their knowledge of design. A structured design workshop can help obtain such gains and analyse their achievements. Therefore this paper presents a structured design workshop with 27 children, aged from 11 to 14 years old, ideating, programming and prototyping smart objects for their town park. The workshops was structured and centred around a board-game with cards, so as to playfully make children reflect about design, and promote their awareness of what they were doing. Data were gathered in relation to children’s reflections from different perspectives, during the workshop, and in relation to their awareness of design, after the workshop. The analysis of the gathered data suggests that the workshop positively affected children’s reflections on design and awareness of design, giving indications for future work concerning critical design with children.
KW - Awareness
KW - Children
KW - Design
KW - IoT
KW - Reflection
KW - Smart object
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85092794617&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1007/s11042-020-09927-x
DO - 10.1007/s11042-020-09927-x
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85092794617
SN - 1380-7501
VL - 80
SP - 34909
EP - 34932
JO - Multimedia Tools and Applications
JF - Multimedia Tools and Applications
IS - 26-27
ER -