This paper presents a structured way to evaluate challenging group or 'co-design dynamics' in participatory design processes with children. In the form of a critical reflection on a project in which 103 children were involved as design partners, we describe the most prevalent co-design dynamics. For example, some groups rush too quickly towards consensus to safeguard group cohesiveness instead of examining other choice alternatives (i.e., groupthink). Besides 'groupthink' we describe five more challenging co-design dynamics: 'laughing out loud', 'free riding', 'unequal power', 'apart together' and 'destructive conflict'. We argue that balancing these dynamics has a positive impact on the dialectic process of developing values and ideas in participatory design, as well as on children's motivation. Therefore, the CCI community could benefit from our in-depth exploration and categorization of challenging group dynamics when co-designing technology with children.

In this paper, we present the GLID method to integrate verbal, material and other co-design outcomes in a structured and coherent analysis. GLID aims to increase internal rigor and transparency in Participatory Design practices and wants to go beyond the surface level of ideas, by identifying participants' values embedded in co-design outcomes. We discuss GLID's theoretical groundings in multimodality and a values-led approach to Participatory Design, and present a case study with primary school children. This case study demonstrates how the different stages of the GLID method can be applied in practice. Based on the case study, we reflect on how GLID contributes to a holistic, situated and more empathic understanding in co-design practices.

In this paper we explore whether Social Interdependence Theory (SIT) is a useful theoretical framework to anticipate on challenging intragroup dynamics in co-design with children. According to SIT, there are five principles that mediate the effectiveness of cooperation: positive interdependence, individual accountability, promotive interaction patterns, social skills and group processing. First, we theoretically ground six challenging group dynamics encountered in a previous study. Next, we introduce SIT and describe how we applied each of the five mediating principles in a new case study in which 49 children aged 9 to 10 were involved in a series of co-design sessions. Afterwards, we present our findings and reflect upon the SIT inspired co-design procedure. Finally we touch upon topics for further research and we make a call for more research on SIT in the Child Computer Interaction (CCI) community.

This paper presents the Collaborative Design Thinking (CoDeT) co-design approach, its theoretical framework, and its application in a case study with 49 children aged 9 to 10 in two schools. CoDeT aims to scaffold children's collaboration and design thinking in co-design settings characterised by a high child-to-adult ratio (ca. 1 adult for 15 to 20 children), such as schools, museums and maker spaces. In these settings, children have to work relatively independent from adults who become guides on the side. This can be challenging due to children's limited understanding of the design process and their lack of skills to collaborate productively towards a shared design goal. CoDeT addresses these challenges by integrating principles of Social Interdependence Theory (SIT) and Design Thinking (DT), which together form the theoretical backbone of the approach. CoDeT was first applied in a case study and yielded promising results in terms of children's collaboration and design thinking skills, yet possible improvements were found. The insights of this case study informed the revised version of CoDeT presented at the end of this article, in a what-why-how structure, allowing researchers and practitioners to apply the co-design approach in a wide variety of contexts characterised by high child-to-adult ratios.