Browse Books

Reviewer: Kent Campbell

For whom should technology be designed__?__ The obvious answer is that it should be designed for the ultimate users. This volume covers issues that should be considered when the ultimate users of the technology will be children. The book is divided into two parts. The first focuses on the design process, and covers issues such as the role of usability, children as designers, and the role of the researcher in design. The second focuses more on the development of specific applications, such as making programming easier for children and enabling them to produce digital movies. Although this is an edited collection, most of the chapters have a similar style and all are very readable. Overall, I found the book extremely interesting, in part because I am now working with people who design and build rehabilitative and enabling technology for children and I have become aware of the need to design things specifically for children. For example, Debra Lieberman describes the development of a video game designed to educate children with asthma about how to control their condition. This is one way to take information that children might find boring or frightening and present it in an enjoyable fashion. Surprisingly, the game appeared to interest some children who did not have asthma. Libby Hanna, Kirsten Risden, Mary Czerwinski, and Kristin Alexander present some interesting ideas about the importance of usability research. As they put it, “instead of helping them progress with the product as it is intended to be used, we try to find out what they want to do with the product” (p.<__?__Pub Fmt interword-space>13). Finally, Ronald Baecker and Ilona Posner describe a summer camp that provided children with the opportunity to make their own movies, an activity that would have been impractical not all that long ago. This is one book I would recommend to people who are designing technology for children. It is one that I am going to put on the bookshelf in my office. I am sure many of the issues covered here will come up in discussions<__?__Pub Caret> with my new colleagues.