Co-designing game narratives and dynamics with first grade children

Abstract

This short paper reports the development of a Participatory Design workshop with first grade children, framed at the Making step of a larger PD project which seeks the creation of a tangible user interface educational video game. Co-designing with children has gained relevance over time, especially in the field of interactive technology. Even though the basis of PD with children and with adults can have many common aspects, the way in which PD activities are developed in each case might be radically different (Fails, 2012). These have led to the exploration of a wide variety of methodologies that focus on facilitating children's participation. We explored how gamified dynamics in PD workshops foster constructive decision making among children, in this case, by designing a character to inform the design of a TUI to learn language through a digital game.