We are often asked, when recruiting children for a co-design team, if we are recruiting for certain characteristics. For a long-standing co-design team that will work on a variety of projects, we are typically not. We are recruiting for diversity on a variety of characteristics among the children as well as the adults on a co-design team. The more diverse a team is, the stronger and more representative it can be, and thus the more creative and innovative the resulting technology may be. There are times when children who may need more support are a part of a design team. The adults’ role in this situation is to assess the support that a child may need in order to participate in co-design, and to offer that support for successful co-design.
- On any long-standing design team, you may find that you have children who are neurodiverse or have other special needs on your team. As much as those children and their families are willing to share, it is important to provide support for all children to be successful on the co-design team. You might find that some children always need someone to write their ideas for them, or that children with attentional issues may benefit from proximity to a trusted adult. Because a co-design team typically includes a high ratio of adults to children, there is the opportunity to provide 1:1 support if needed. Always be sure that you are not singling out children, but rather providing support that they need in a respectful way.
- Sometimes, you may find that you are creating a product that is intended for a specific group of children, such as a reading software for children with reading challenges. In this case, if it is possible to include children with that specific challenge on the design team, you should do so. Those are the children who will be the end users, and therefore they should be included on the design team.
- Always remember that the goal of co-design is the design ideas. Therefore, a very wide range of children and adults can participate with the proper support. As long as someone is able to communicate design ideas in some way, they can be a co-designer.
References
Benton, L. and Johnson, H. (2015). Widening participation in technology design: A review of the involvement of children with special educational needs and disabilities. International Journal of Child-Computer Interaction 3 (2015), 23–40.
Guha, M.L, Druin, A., and Fails, J.A. (2008). Designing with and for children with special needs: An inclusionary model. In Proceedings of the 7th international conference on Interaction design and children. 61–64.
Pires, A., Neto, I., Brule, E., Malinverni, L., Metatla, O., Hourcade, J.P. (2022). Co-Designing with Mixed-Ability Groups of Children to Promote Inclusive Education. IDC ’22: Proceedings of the 21st Annual ACM Interaction Design and Children Conference, pages 715- 71.
