Children designers in the museum

This article takes the position that space as designed is a material setting for learning, accommodating specific functions, while people can give meaning to space through their engagement with it, making it a place. This approach specifies that an essential characteristic of a child-centered design method is the active participation by children, teachers, and family members in planning elementary and middle schools. Since space is given meaning by its occupants, the actual users have to be included in the project: as children and their teachers and parents become active stakeholders, the spaces envisioned by professional designers can become “places” with their own special meanings and suited to the special needs of each community. The way of involving children in such a process should be age and culturally appropriate. Moreover, such participation in placemaking needs not end when the building is complete but can be extended into the life of the school. The article ends by proposing that learning environments should have “unfinished spaces” for children and teachers to manipulate and interpret, as a means to enhance a stronger involvement and attachment to spaces created by professional designers.

Interaction Design and …, 2002

The book chapter starts with a lexicon defining the main keywords that situate the subsequent case analyse on participatory design projects and processes with children. They selected keywords are: play, ambiguity, children, collaboration and conflict. The essay builds on an analyse of Playful Rules, a participatory design project with children in a local park in Brussels (BE). It addresses the importance for engaging in serious relations with children; why it matters to involve children in discussions on public matters, and finally what designers (and adults) can learn from children’s playful and ambiguous approach as to reconfigure conventional norms, behaviour and roles. The chapter is part of the book "Hamers, D., Bueno de Mesquita, N., Vaneycken, A,. & Schoffelen, J. (red.) (2017). Trading Places: Practices of Public Participation in Art and Design Research. Barcelona: dpr-barcelona” produced during the TRADERS project (Training art and design researchers in participation for public space).

2008

Abstract Aiming at edutainment technologies for museums, elements of participatory design techniques and focus groups were combined under the theoretical framework of the cycle of creative imagination in order to involve 10 year-old children in the design process of such applications. In contrast to existing practices where children are called to evaluate games designed by adults, the proposed method involves children from the initial phases of development.

Instituto Politécnico do Cávado e do Ave (IPCA), 2019

This article presents part of the research carried out under a master's thesis, which aimed to launch research bases for an interdisciplinary study between three areas: Design, Education and Museology. In this context, Design is seen as a facilitator and as a methodology that aims to mediate between museological contents and children, through design-based educational processes. The Museum as a privileged space for non-formal education is, therefore, a stage of excellence for this analysis. We consider Design as a fusion between Art, Engineering and Management, taking advantage of its multi and transdisciplinary work capacity, valuing the immaterial, the experience and the process as essential parts of Design discipline and as a reflection of post-industrial society. We also make a parallel between Design and the curation process, by approaching methodologies and tools used in both areas.

European Journal of Education Studies, 2024

This research examines whether children can acquire aesthetics through design in their everyday lives. Students recycle their old school seats, following their own ideas. The aim of the project is for children to get to know sustainable design through a construction of their own and to work cooperatively, resulting in offering their work to the community. The study comes to answer if children can implement a design thinking project in primary school if they have the ability to become the designers of their own things if they can understand sustainability through design, and if they can work with the intention of offering their project to the community. Students develop thinking and life skills through design thinking, experimentation, and playful art, as well as through sensory and narrative design, two processes that are perfectly natural in the world of children. Participatory work in a collaborative community form helps the children to step outside themselves and acquire empathy for the rest of the school community.

2012

In this paper we describe our experience of designing and running a user evaluation of early prototypes of digital installations prior to their deployment in a new national heritage museum. Children, their parents, siblings and friends were invited to participate in the study, We focus on the effectiveness of using children's drawings to elicit responses from the child participants. Drawings provided us with insight into children's experience of the installations. Moreover, they proved a useful entry point for interviewing young children, avoiding some of the known challenges in this.

International Journal of Advanced Trends in Computer Science and Engineering, 2019

Child-Computer Interaction (CCI) research has discovered that there are numerous benefits of involving children in the process of designing new technology. Specifically, children with disabilities have become a potential target of CCI researchers focusing on participation with children in the process of technology design, applying design methods such as participatory design (PD). We aimed to highlight the lack of research that investigates the insight of children with VIs in the technology design process. In addition to the roles that children can play during the design activity. Methods, we identified the PD processes of when children with VIs have been participated in design activity from existing research and conducted a literature review of empirical studies of co-designing with VIs children. The main result shows that children with VIs can play the role of a design partner during the design process. The current state of evidence supports that the PD can have a positive impact on involving children with VIs in the design process.

This study presents an evaluation of a workshop for university students about how to provide children with design education through architecture, and students' points of view about this workshop. The participants of the workshop were volunteer undergraduate students in the Department of Architecture at Yldz Technical University, Istanbul. Presentations and activities about design education for children were held during the two-day workshop. The activities were adapted from Architecture and Children: Design Education Programme developed for children by Taylor, Vlastos, et al. At the end of the activities, the participating students were administered a questionnaire form consisting of open-ended questions so that they could make an evaluation of the programme. In the form, they were asked about their expectations and suggestions related to skills and knowledge they acquired at the end of the workshop. The students' statements were summarized and interpreted by descriptive analysis technique. The students participating in the workshop stated that architecture was taught to children in a very interesting and entertaining way. They further pointed out the need for more cooperation between people working in architecture and child education.

Proceedings of the 31st Australian Conference on Human-Computer-Interaction, 2019

Child participation in design is a central focus of Child Computer Interaction (CCI) research, however, examples of participatory research with children are primarily situated in adult-led contexts (e.g. design lab, classroom, museum) where design objectives, activities and tools are devised and facilitated by adults. In this paper, we contribute to current discussions by describing a participatory study situated within the "child-led nature-play contexts" of nine children (7-11 years). By adapting the role of "least-adult" originally described in the childhood studies literature, we describe how this role can be established to access these exclusive play places and maintained through co-inquiry into each child's unique play practice. This research contributes to current discussions of child participation in CCI by (i) introducing the role of least-adult as an approach to engaging with children through participatory research, (ii) recognising the influence of place in shaping child participation , and (iii) pointing to spatial-temporal contextual factors as an important factor for enabling and shaping participatory research. CCS CONCEPTS • Human-centered computing → Participatory design.

ARCHHIST'13 ARCHITECTURE POLITICS ART CONFERENCE: Politics in the history of architecture as cause & consequence, 2013

"The aim of this paper is to introduce a new workshop design called "My Dream Playground" implemented under Izmir and Sofia Architecture Weeks in the year of 2012. The workshop is developed within a research project on ideological nature of playgrounds focusing on the transition case of Bulgaria where children play in both communistic and modern playground equipment. The workshop design is following the steps in which art- and design-oriented interactions between children and architects are stressed. Thus, the paper firstly discusses the theoretical background of the workshops, so-called Mosaic approach which gives a space to children’s role as members of the community and a freedom of expression while enhancing social relations with other children and with the architects. Secondly, it is debated how this significant workshop design, offering a special briefing on communications, helps architects and designers to enhance their communication skills with children and how they can fully benefit from children's imagination power in achieving their creative design work on playgrounds. Finally the outputs of the workshops are also presented and evaluated. Keywords: Mosaic approach, participatory design, workshops, playgrounds, communication skills. "

2023

We have forgotten how to use our free and open minds, and creativity is no longer valued in the current educational system. The purpose of this research is to explore the benefits of intergenerational participatory design in an academic setting to develop new ways of connecting design education with local schools. The MyMachine case study highlights the importance of preserving the role of design in education and fostering creativity through Dream Machines. This collaborative, participatory design challenge, involved approximately 30 teachers and 900 students within three levels of education, led to a reflection on how design is taught, thought about, and practiced. The success of co-creation in a physical environment during the first two editions allowed two more editions of co-creation in a digital environment necessitated by lockdown. This led to misunderstandings that hindered the co-creation process. Nonetheless, this case study demonstrates the importance of intergenerational co-creation in participatory design, not only through the sharing of intentions, new insights, and skills, but also as a laboratory of emotions.

Proceedings of DRS2018: Catalyst, vol. 7, 2018

This paper explores co-designing with children in the context of undergraduate industrial design education, and investigates the potential of performative and narrative-based design methods in co-designing with children. It addresses the early phases of design process and proposes a co-design method for supporting industrial design students’ eliciting children’s needs and preferences. The field study conducted involves a co-design session with 51 industrial design students and 24 third grade primary school children, and face to face semi-structured interviews with 24 design students who participated in the co-design session. The findings indicate that the proposed co-design method, I-Wonder-How, is supportive for industrial design students in their eliciting children’s needs and preferences. Based on the challenges experienced by design students during the co-design session and the post-session design process, the study draws attention to the importance of the entire co-design experience including pre and post phases. While the pre-session phase entails preparedness of the parties involved, the post-session phase requires design students to focus on reinterpreting and reconstructing design insights.

Scientific e-journal of social sciences and art, 2019

Traditional museum is typically characterized especially by presenting exhibits. However, it has recently been enriched by many other features that contribute to the attractiveness of exhibitions. Museum spaces nowadays offer various educational events, creative workshops or shops with artefacts and publications. This paper is aimed at presenting partial research results orientated to human-centered design of museums for children. The introductory part describes innovative design tools that focus on multisensory presentation of exhibits, hands-on, color impact, emotion perception etc., as well as possibilities of using the Universal Design as a Learning method to create exhibitions for children with special needs. The main part of the work consists of our team's research aimed at exploring the needs of different children, especially children with various disabilities, in the creation of children's museum space and exhibitions. The first phase of research is focused on the analysis of spatial properties, exhibits and interactions between them. The aim was to discover how those factors influence children's attention and impact on their learning ability. This part of the research was carried out in BIBIANA-International House of Art for Children in Bratislava. The end of the paper indicates further research possibilities that will be explored in the next phase of our research in the future.

Journal For Virtual Worlds Research

In 2007, Cornell University piloted the Museum Discovery Institute (MDI), adding a new dimension to its commitment to educational outreach. The pilot program was aligned with the Girl Scouts’ National GirLink Initiative and its Museum Discovery badge requirements, in response to the organization’s initiative focused on girls and technology. Students visited bricks and mortar museums on Cornell University’s campus and designed and created their own 3D virtual exhibits in response to their learning experience during the museum visits. In this case study, we will describe and contextualize the framework of the educational experiences integrated into the Museum Discovery Institute as a reference resource for museum education professionals and classroom educators.