Do We Design for the Experiences of Children or Do We Merely Crouch to a 120 cm Sight Level?
Marie Williams, CEO and Founder of Dream Networks Social Enterprise, CMEng and FRSA, UCL PHD candidate at the Bartlett Institute of Global Prosperity
Designing for Child’s Play
During this interactive design workshop, participants were transported into the lives of displaced children living in Congo and Lebanon who are currently living in seemingly “wild” and challenging situations. The participants who consisted of academics, design professionals and students, where giving a clear and rather ambitious challenge. They had 90 minutes to design a play area for displaced children in the informal settlements. Although the United Nations Convention for Childs Rights recognises that all children have a right to play and recreation, displaced children are repeatedly not afforded access to play that is fundamental to their development and also has the potential to help them to manage the trauma (Whitebread et al., 2012) many of them have experienced (Perkins et al., 2018; Rogers-Sirin, 2015). According to the renown Piaget cognitive development theory, from birth, children develop their language, social, cognitive and motor skills through playing (Garwood, 1982). However, in low income and displaced communities, the provision of outdoor play areas is frequently absent from the built environment due to lack of resources, lack of prioritisation of children’s developmental needs, poor maintenance and poor access to appropriate land.
What Uses Does a Toilet Roll Have? A Child’s Perspective
The workshop started off with laying down a few imperative foundational truths. 1) we as adults do not have a child’s perspective 2) children are naturally creative and learn through play (Piaget , 1973) 3) Around the world children lack access to engaging outdoor play areas. After comparing our adult perspectives of the functional affordances to the object’s children play with, to what children perceived the objects function to be, it was clear, we as adults did not see the world like children do! For example, a child can perceive a toilet roll as a sword, a building block, a looking lens and countless other functions that produce a variety of experiences.
The Right for Children to Participate
Arguably this is an obvious point, however when designing services and products for children, designers frequently design and build solutions based on a generalised perception of what a child needs, without involving the children themselves in the research or design process. In response to the question, do we perceive we understand a child’s life experience and interactions by merely crouching to 120 cm sight level or are we ready to interact with the children themselves to enable them to provide creative and resilient solutions? Experience would suggest we as adults, simply crouch. Arguably, this why we have seen limited innovation in outdoor play experiences, when the users themselves, the children, are frequently excluded from the design process. The design of outdoor play areas has repeatedly suffered from poor engagement and standardised design. Moreover, in the built environment, user experiences are often prescribed to the needs and challenges of adults, whose view of the world is above the 120 cm sight level of a 7-year-old child. Through enabling potential users or customers to collectively design with professionals such as researchers, designers , architects, engineers or developers, they are empowered to cooperatively create throughout the design process and produce innovative solutions, In doing so, the end users or customers become co-designers.operatively create throughout the design process and produce innovative solutions, In doing so, the end users or customers become co-designers.
Co-design is a participatory design process that enables the researcher, user and designer to collectively design a solution to users problem or needs (Figure 1). Co-design is deemed to provide more generative and innovative solutions, increase the agency of end users
(Castán Broto and Neves Alves, 2018; Del Gaudio et al., 2016; Munthe-Kaas, 2015) provide participatory education (Castelloe et al., 2002) encourage social interaction (Bovaird, 2007; Hojeily, 2015; Mitlin, 2018) and enable stakeholders to collaboratively achieve a shared goal (Hojeily, 2015). In my opinion, co-designing children’s products or service is a recipe for success and has the power to empower children as design partners (Figure 2) to be “experts of their experiences” (Sleeswijk Visser, Stappers, Van der Lugt, & Sanders, 2005). It is a design practise that can enable participants to “collaboratively envision new design futures” and open up our “creative potentials” (Lazar et al., 2018, p. 1). However the practical implementation of co-design does have its challenges, some of which were experienced during the workshop.
Is Co-Design a Recipe for Success?
Co-design is a participatory design process that enables the researcher, user and designer to collectively design a solution to users problem or needs (Figure 1). Co-design is deemed to provide more generative and innovative solutions, increase the agency of end users (Castán Broto and Neves Alves, 2018; Del Gaudio et al., 2016; Munthe-Kaas, 2015) provide participatory education (Castelloe et al., 2002) encourage social interaction (Bovaird, 2007; Hojeily, 2015; Mitlin, 2018) and enable stakeholders to collaboratively achieve a shared goal (Hojeily, 2015). In my opinion, co-designing children’s products or service is a recipe for success and has the power to empower children as design partners (Figure 2) to be “experts of their experiences” (Sleeswijk Visser, Stappers, Van der Lugt, & Sanders, 2005). It is a design practise that can enable participants to “collaboratively envision new design futures” and open up our “creative potentials” (Lazar et al., 2018, p. 1). However the practical implementation of co-design does have its challenges, some of which were experienced during the workshop.
Ready, Set, Go!
The diverse participants had just 90 minutes to co-design a play solution to children based in either Congo or Lebanon using participatory design tools tailored to children. They buckled themselves in and got ready for what they later reflected on as a fun and insightful journey, that “set the tone for a fantastic week” at IXDA 2019.
Videos were used to introduce them to the environment and the need. This highlighted one challenge with co-designing, it is important designers and researchers invite users to partner in the design process and you do not merely listen to the users to define the problem. Due to the nature of the workshop, we could not interact with the end users. However in practise, various tools can be adopted such as interviews, storytelling, body forming and storyboards to interact with the child user. As designers in the 21st century, we can even harness digital collaboration platforms to design with the user who reside in a different geographical location. However, these platforms need to be tailored to both adult and child users.
The participants were left to Ask, Ideate, Define, Design, Test and Validate! The participants listened to the videos to ascertain their challenges with playing within their environment and took notes. As the children were not present, the participants created role plays of the children’s play experiences based on what they observed in the videos and used the role play process to gain empathy for the children’s play experiences. The role play process also highlighted the knowledge gaps that could be filled by co-designing with the children, for example their motivations to playing and pain points preventing them from playing. Next step, Ideate! Working with children, I have found that children typically start to have ideas early, before the design brief has been finalised or the problem has been precisely defined. Which is why the ideate stage comes earlier in the approach I apply. In my opinion, if you have ideas, draw, write, even model them in playdough. After the problem is defined, we collectively sieve out the ideas that don’t address the problem and still have time to generate more ideas. This raises another challenge or perhaps an opportunity, within the co-designing process. As designers or researchers, we need to adopt design tools that the users can access, adopt and enjoy.
A Co-Design Thinking Process
There are a diverse range of tools recognised for co-designing with adults but not many for co-designing with children. Dream Networks adopts a co-design thinking process, which integrates the renowned double diamond with child-centred design thinking principles and child participatory tools. In doing so, we aim to enable children as young as 3 years old to participate throughout the design process as design partners. We adopt participatory tools that are tailored to the developmental abilities and needs of the children. In the design workshop, the participants adopted some of these child-friendly participation methods. The participants were encouraged/forced to act out their interpretations of the children’s experiences playing in the informal settlement, a participation tool enjoyed by children and frequently feared by adults. However more tools are required to enable children to facilitate the co-design process, to give them agency and to create a generative process of design. (Table 1).
Co-Designing With Respect
Lastly, co-design requires collaboration and respect. For it to be a success, participants must be able communicate effectively with each other, value each other’s opinion and also value the collaboration. I would definitely say the workshop participants experienced how both natural and challenging this can be. During the co-design stages, they had to listen to each other and hopefully appreciate the value of others’ opinions. At the final stage of design process, the participants had successfully collaboratively created a sensory tent for displaced children in Congo and a play kit made out of locally sourced natural materials in Lebanon. Great, contextual and accessible solutions. I can’t imagine how much more engaging and community tailored the solutions would have been if we were designing with the children themselves.
However, how does the process of collaboration and respecting one another look like when co-designing with children? How can we work with them to ensure they have agency, power dynamics are managed and that the children recognise themselves to be the play experts, while still being able to work in a team. Sounds tough? By recognising our value as design experts who are able to nurture the children’s ideas and facilitate the design process, we are freed from the need to be the lead designer. Moreover, as a practising co-designer with children, I can assure you if you are equipped with empathy, a listening ear and a playful attitude, although it may be tough sometimes, co-designing with children is a fun and very rewarding vocation.
What Is our Role As Designers?
At the end of the workshop, the participants were asked “what is our role as designers in the co-design process” the overwhelming majority said we are facilitators! This conclusion was reinforced by the great Don Norman, the next day during his keynote message. I strongly believe that as designers we should position ourselves to partner with creative children to help to cultivate their ideas and collectively create innovative and sustainable solutions. Solutions that are led by the child! Why the child, well they are the user and frankly they are the experts of their experiences. It’s time for us to stop crouching, stop trying to merely gauge their perspective. To go beyond completing interviews and surveys, to rise above tokenism and enable children to take their rightful place as design partners.
To find out more about how we are co-designing with children and seeking to tackle the global play epidemic, please feel free to drop me an email at marie@dreamnetworks.co.uk or visit our website www.dreamnetworks.co.uk or follow us on twitter@DNloveplays
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About Marie
A senior chartered engineer, the CEO of Dream Networks C.I.C, PHD student and perhaps most importantly a woman who is passionate about child development through play. Her PhD focuses on the co-design of resilient play areas within displaced urban and rural communities in Kenya and Lebanon at UCL (UniversIty College London).
CEO and founder of Dream Networks Social enterprise. Dream Networks collaborates with businesses, schools and communities to co-design and build creative playgrounds in economically deprived countries where children lack access to engaging and safe playgrounds. Since 2016, we have partnered with STEM-based organisations such as Atkins to co-design creative playgrounds that have been sustainably built for over 3000 children.
Experienced chartered (CEng IMeche), senior engineer and product manager who has led product development and implementation within varied technology sectors. These sectors include Aircraft programs, nuclear fusion building design, big data analytics for big data monetization and digital visualisation. Strong design development, analysis, communication, data analytics, 2D and 3D visualisation, business development and management skills. Specific specialism in technical leadership, product development, creative design and programme integration within large multi-disciplinary projects and start-ups.
