Why Does a Joyful Process of Co-Design Matter for Children's Technology Design?

• In Event: 51.027 - Pedagogies of Joy :) Joy as Resistance at the Intersection of STEM Learning Pathways

Abstract

Objective
KidsTeam UW is an intergenerational group of children (ages 7 – 11) and adults that co-design new technologies for children, with children. KidsTeam UW children meet a full week in the summer and twice a week during the school year to co-design with industry, non-profit, and university partners. Our team uses Cooperative Inquiry (Druin, 2002; Yip et al., 2017), a participatory design (PD) method that emphasizes children and adults as equal and equitable design partners. The Cooperative Inquiry method has been shown to create learning benefits for youth (e.g., McNally, Mauriello, Guha, & Druin, 2017) and families (Yip et al., 2016) who participate in co-design. However, we have yet to examine the role of play in motivating children to continue participation in co-design.

Perspective
We focus on Ehn’s (1993) design language games. A language-game is a series of social activities with rules that are socially created, but not necessarily explicit. Creative PD designers working with users must find ways in which participation in design activities makes sense to all the participants. In PD with youth, participants engage in ways that not only acknowledge power relations and legitimate access to decision-making processes, but designers must also provide children and adults with activities that seamlessly allow active engagement in the design space. Ehn explains that language-games are associated with fun and joyful activities that must transcend boredom and get all participants become full participants. Walsh et al. (2013) develop a framework to create design techniques so that co-design is a joyful experience for both adults and children. Our contribution to this symposium is an examination of children’s play as it relates language games, design techniques, and the Cooperative Inquiry method (Druin, 2002; Yip et al., 2017).

Method & Results
In Years 1 to 3 of the project, KidsTeam UW consisted of eight to ten children (ages 7-11) per year from October 2015 to May 2018. We strove for diversity in socioeconomic status, gender, ethnicity, and age to promote multiple viewpoints. The core adult members included undergraduates, graduate students, post-doctoral researchers, and one professor. KidsTeam UW members meet twice a week on a university campus in 90-minute sessions. A total of 120 co-design sessions occurred. We collected data from video recordings, photographs, analytic memos, and interviews of the children. We will present case studies of children’s play during co-design as it relates to design language games (Merriam, 2009). Preliminary analysis suggests that play is a fundamental aspect of co-design that supports the development of equal partnership development through relationship building, facilitation, designing together, and idea generation (Yip et al., 2017).

Significance
This work addresses the need to support pedagogies of design thinking in children and adults. By examining how play relates to power dynamics and language games, we are advancing understanding of how to motivate more equitable forms of designing and learning together. Our analysis of motivations and engagements in KidsTeam UW uncovers ways to leverage new forms of playful pedagogy that build meaningful collaboration among adults and children.

Authors

• Jason Yip, University of Washington - Seattle

• Caroline Pitt, University of Washington - Seattle