Children in the information technology design process: A review of theories and their applications <s> KidPad: cooperative inquiry at work <s> We established an interdisciplinmy, intergenemtional collaboration in the fidl of 1995, between the University of New Mexico’s Computer Science Departmen4 the College of Fducatiou and local Albuquerque elementary school children. The goal of this reaeamh was to develop an expressive digital medium with an intuitive zooming - to support a learning environment tbr children. In the _ of this eollaboratio~ design methodologies that support a child’s role in the development of new technologies WE explored. What follows is a summary of our iterative design experience, collaboration, and the results of the resuch to date. <s> BIB001 </s> Children in the information technology design process: A review of theories and their applications <s> KidPad: cooperative inquiry at work <s> ABSTRACT As more information resources become accessible using computers, our digital interfaces to those resources need to be appropriate for all people. However when it comes to digital libraries, the interfaces have typically been designed for older children or adults. Therefore, we have begun to develop a digital library interface developmentally appropriate for young children (ages 5–10 years old). Our prototype system we now call “SearchKids” offers a graphical interface for querying, browsing and reviewing search results. This paper describes our motivation for the research, the design partnership we established between children and adults, our design process, the technology outcomes of our current work, and the lessons we have learned. Categories and Subject Descriptors H.5.2 [Information Interfaces and Presentation]: User Interfaces - graphical user interfaces, interaction styles, screen design, user-centered design. H.3.7 [Information Storage and Retrieval]: Digital Libraries - user issues. H.3.3 [Information Storage and Retrieval]: Information Search and Retrieval - query formulation. D.2.1 [Software Engineering]: Requirements/Specifications - elicitation methods. General Terms Design, Human Factors. <s> BIB002
KidPad is the outcome of Druin's first efforts at employing cooperative inquiry as a design approach. Her belief that ''[while] children may not be programmers or engineers, they are experts in what they want and why they want it'' BIB001 propelled her to try to incorporate children's ideas into working software. Not only is the KidsTeam team intergenerational, but also borrowing from the contextual design approach, it is interdisciplinary. Representatives from computer science, library studies, education, and HCI took turns leading the activities, depending on what expertise was needed at the time. Druin advocates children's input before the technology design is even begun, and so in the KidPad project, through team collaboration, a knowledge base of information was developed before coding even began BIB001 . She found that collaboration with children is very different than with adults: ''Children are experts at being kids; but exactly what that means is hard to say. They can't offer you a list of the five important things you must include in your technology. Often, children are not that self-aware or verbal about their needs. They must be given opportunities for communication and self-awareness, either through experience with technology or through participatory design exercises that ask them to see possibilities using low-tech prototyping tools'' BIB001 . KidPad is the first result of Druin's intergenerational, interdisciplinary design team. Based on existing storytelling software called Pad++, KidPad offers a zoom feature that supports and encourages the creation of nonlinear stories. As Druin states, ''It seemed to be a very natural way for children to tell their stories. They enjoyed the freedom of piecing together their thoughts and connecting them any which way they wanted to by zooming'' BIB001 . The design team, had it comprised only adults, with children acting in user or tester roles probably would not have developed such flexible, creative software. As the design process progressed, the designers picked up on many of the children's suggestions such as a toolbar of ''local tools'' including a crayon, an eraser, and an arrow with which they could select pictures from a picture scrapbook to drag onto the KidPad drawing surface. The children also suggested that the drawing tools offered by the software should be represented with icons instead of with text labels so that even very young children would be able to use them. Another feature recommended by the children is the ''magic wand,'' which was developed in response to the children's frustration at getting lost when zooming. The Pad++ system provided similar functionality to the magic wand, but it was not intuitive for the children. In the design of KidPad, the participation of the children (in terms of their suggestions, comments, etc.) allowed the adult designers to develop software that truly met the children's needs; in addition, as Nielsen would agree, this is the end goal of usability research. Another benefit that BIB001 discovered is that this software also supported collaboration between the children when they were writing and illustrating their stories on KidPad. As more of the children's ideas were incorporated into the KidPad software, their stories became more complex and richer in content and structure BIB001 . These positive educational, social, and learning outcomes reinforce the value of having children collaborate fully in the design process. BIB002 used the cooperative inquiry approach to develop software suitable for a children's digital library. The intergenerational design team was split into three groups of two to three children, one teacher and one or two university researchers. Using low-tech prototyping materials, each group was asked to design a digital library of the future that would contain everything they wanted to know about animals. As with traditional participatory design approaches, the design process was iterative in nature. Once the brainstorming on the digital library of the future was completed, the team critiqued existing digital library systems containing animal content. The children then were given the opportunity to use the technology with the adults observing and taking field notes of what they were saying and doing. Following this, each child was asked to identify three things he or she liked about using the technology and three things he or she disliked. From analysis of these likes and dislikes, the researchers discovered that the children disliked the use of animated characters. This is indeed an interesting finding, in that it dispels a common misconception that all children love animation (see also Large et al., in press ). The children also wanted a concrete purpose for performing a search and something done with the information once it is obtained. Once the adults understood the children's ideas, the observations of the technologies by the adults and the children were found to be very similar BIB002 .