Yoram Chisik

Starting an intergenerational technology design team: a case study

This paper presents a case study of the first three months of a new intergenerational design team with children ages 10--13. It discusses the research and design methods used for working with children of this age group, the challenges and opportunities of starting a new team, and the lessons learned.

Reading in the wild: sociable literacy in practice

Online reading, especially among children, is an understudied phenomenon. Thus designers of digital libraries and pedagogic tools for children generally lack deep knowledge about how to shape reading experiences so that they will be attractive for young audiences. Without a nuanced picture of children as readers, we are unlikely to develop systems responsive to their needs and desires. Participatory design coupled with studies of prototypes in natural conditions may help us create experiences that contribute to proficient literacy practices among children 10 to 14 years old. Our participatory design processes revealed that children this age highly value sharing their experiences and that reading sociably can introduce new pleasures. The current study uses the Alph prototype to study how one small group of children responds to its sociable literacy features.

An image of electricity: towards an understanding of how people perceive electricity

Although an enormous amount of research effort has been devoted to understanding peoples energy consumption habits, visualizing their consumption and finding ways of motivating them towards more sustainable behaviours we are still in the dark with regards to peoples basic perception of electricity, their concept of what electricity is and their notion of the consumption rates of various electrical devices. In this study we have employed a sketching methodology to elicit peoples basic mental image of what electricity is, how they conceive of the electrical infrastructure in their home and which devices they think represent the largest drain on their wallets. Preliminary analysis of the results show that people do not have a clear mental model of electricity and tend to associate the size of the device and the duration of use with higher rates of consumption regardless of the type of device, the type of use it is put to and its actual consumption level.

Around the world in 8 workshops: investigating anticipated player experiences of children

Player experience describes the qualities of player-game interaction and is typically evaluated during or after the game has been developed. Different approaches exist to improve and optimize player experience during the design process (e.g., design guidelines). However, the anticipated or expected player experience of users can also guide game developers and researcher in order to develop better games. A series of game ideation workshops with children aged 8 to 15 years was conducted in eight different locations around the world. The workshops produced video snippets, in which children explain their thoughts on possible game play scenarios of a game idea (i.e., anticipations and expectations). An initial content analysis of the videos highlights the game elements and playful experiences that contribute to the anticipated player experience of the children that should guide game developers and researchers.

The Kathmandu Kids Entertainment Workshops

The Kathmandu kids workshops at Advances in Computer Entertainment (ACE) brought together local children and leading entertainment media researchers from around the world in a daylong exploration of how children interact with and think about the latest innovations in computer entertainment and what these innovations or the lack thereof mean to their lives. The result was a mixture of surprise, play, inquiry and reflection. In this chapter, we describe the ideas behind the children workshops concept and the individual workshops themselves, the settings in which the workshops took place and the nature of the participants and the overall experience and outcome of the workshops.

A Tale of Two Puppets, Two Avatars and Two Countries

We describe observations from studies conducted with school children in Nepal and Portugal with the aim of exploring two questions: 1. Can we develop an interactive game that will continue to engage the child in gameplay when the electricity supply fails? 2. What are the discernable differences in the ways children in Nepal and Portugal interact with the game given the huge socio-economic and cultural differences between them? The studies highlight the potential of the design in fostering continued engagement in the game when the electricity supply fails. They also show surprising little difference between the children in Nepal and Portugal. The observations suggest game mechanism and basic interactions can be regarded as universal across cultures and levels of income and can thus be designed and tested in any location and be expected to work and be understood by children from any culture and background.

Ilha Musical: a CAVE for nurturing cultural appreciation

Engaging children born in the digital age with traditional culture practices is a pedagogical and a technological challenge. In this paper we describe Ilha Musical, an interactive panoramic experience designed to foster appreciation of traditional Madeiran cultural practices in children from the island and abroad. The design employs a rhythm game in which children engage in traditional folk music and song while being exposed to visuals of the landscape, architecture, dance and other cultural motifs. We conclude with an eye tracking and scene analysis showing the success of the game in using competition and cooperation as a means of engaging the children with each other as well as with the narrative, the physical display and interface elements.

When Sharing Less Means More: How Gender Moderates the Impact of Quantity of Information Shared in a Social Network Profile on Profile Viewers' Intentions About Socialization

This study summarizes the results from a 2 (low vs. high information) × 2 (female vs. male profile) experiment that investigates the impact of quantity of information shared on a Social Network Site (SNS) profile on viewers’ intentions to pursue further interactions with the profile owner. Quantity of information had no statistically significant effect on intentions to further socialize online. The two-way interaction between information quantity and profile gender was such that for male profiles more information increased profile viewers’ intentions to further socialize with the profile owner, whereas for female profiles the opposite was the case. The three-way interactions among quantity of information, profile gender, and profile viewers gender underline a tendency for male profile viewers to respond more positively to higher information shared by profiles from their own gender. For female viewers, this effect, although in the same direction, was smaller.

Encapsulating streams of consciousness into the international children's digital library

Digital libraries provide a great deal of flexibility by allowing users to explore and annotate their collections. The majority of digital libraries and research in the field have concentrated on the needs and habits of adult users; little is known about the habits and specific needs of children using digital libraries. This paper introduces Alph, a prototype interface specifically designed with a child annotator in mind.

Hugvie as a Therapeutic Agent in the Improvement of Interaction Skills in Children with Developmental Disabilities: An Exploratory Study

In this exploratory study we examined the use of a Hugvie, a “huggable” pillow with an expressionless vague human form as a means of engaging and maintaining the attention of 8 children between the ages of 2 to 8 years old with a history of communication and language developmental delay and difficulties with social interaction as part of ongoing communication and speech therapy treatment in a speech pathology clinic. Results from 40 individual sessions indicate Hugvie to be an effective means of drawing and engaging the attention of the children and in facilitating the goals and objectives of the treatment plan when compared with conventional therapy aids such as toys and digital applications. The study validates previous observations related to robotic interfaces with minimalistic facial expression and sets a path for further inquiry into tangible speech therapy aids.