The Evolution of Engagements and Social Bonds During Child-Parent Co-design

Abstract

Partnering with parents and children in the design process can be important for producing technologies that take into consideration the rich context of family life. However, to date, few studies have examined the actual process of designing with families and their children. Without understanding the process, we risk making poor design choices in user-interactive experiences that take into account important family dynamics. The purpose of this investigation is to understand how parent-child relationships in families shape co-design processes and how they are reshaped through co-design. We document the evolutionary process and outcomes that exist in co-design partnerships between researchers and families. We found that parents' engagement patterns shifted more slowly than that of children's from observing and facilitating to design partnering practices. Our analysis suggests the importance of establishing and nurturing social bonds among parents, children, and researchers in the co-design process.

Connected Learning, Collapsed Contexts

“…Researchers have also designed and implemented technologies like Science Everywhere and Zydeco for connecting learning contexts [4,21]. Science Everywhere explores how youth can connect science across settings and was developed through a co-design process with youth and their families [4,93]. Zydeco also connects science across settings, allowing students to transfer their learning from the museum to the classroom using a mobile application [21,60].…”

The Evolution of Bonded Design: From Elementary School to Higher Education

“…Participatory design has flourished in recent decades and has evolved into many different approaches with different methods of engaging end-user communities in the design process. For example, participatory design techniques have been used to design more user-friendly systems with and for children [8,[12][13][14], in planning library spaces [15], and in business [16]. What unites these approaches is the over-arching concept of active participant involvement leading to better outcomes.…”

A Badge, Not a Barrier

“…Recent work by several scholars further explores the idea of whether children are equal design partners and how the relationships and roles between the children and adults can change over time [5,67,68,78,79]. In the current study, we engage in an ongoing PD process with youth stakeholders and their support staf to develop, implement, and refne a digital badge system that supports their learning in an after-school science interpretation program.…”