Article

Being playful: learning from children

Author:

Alan DixAuthors Info & Claims

IDC '03: Proceedings of the 2003 conference on Interaction design and children

Pages 3 - 9

https://doi.org/10.1145/953536.953538

Published: 01 July 2003 Publication History

Abstract

This paper explores children's understanding as a resource and inspiration for interface design and beyond. From children we can understand innate intelligences and skills, including a sense of number and the nature of play. Play is possibly one of the origins of imagination, which in turn is essential for our own creative thought. Surprisingly few adults engage in creative play, but it is when adult-like rationality and child-like imagination meet that we can best produce effective and innovative solutions. Even writing a paper has aspects of playfulness, such as the puzzle of phrasing an abstract in exactly one hundred words... or so.

References

[1]

S. K. Card, T. P. Moran, and A. Newell. The keystroke-level model for user performance with interactive systems. Communications of the ACM 23:396--410, 1980.

Digital Library

[2]

Cosmides, L. The Logic of Social Exchang: Has natural selection shaped how humans reason? Studies with the Wason selection task. Cognition, 31:187--276, 1989.

[3]

S. Dehaene (1997). The Number Sense. Penguin, London.

[4]

A. Dix (2002). driving as a cyborg experience. Workshop on Homopolybots: Building Modular Humans. Lancaster, 9th May 2002 www.hcibook.com/alan/papers/cyborg-driver-2002/.

[5]

A. Dix. Deconstructing Experience - pulling crackers apart. In Funology: From Usability to Enjoyment. M. Blythe, K. Overbeeke, A. Monk and P. Wright (eds.) Dordrecht, the Netherlands: Kluwer, 2003.

Digital Library

[6]

A. Dix. Imagination and Rationality. Working Essay. Lancaster University, UK 2003. http://www.hcibook.com/alan/papers/imagination2003/.

[7]

M. Donaldson (1979). Childrens Minds. W. W. Norton.

[8]

W. Gaver (2001). Designing for Ludic Aspects of Everyday Life. ERCIM News No. 47, October 2001. www.ercim.org/publication/Ercim_News/enw47/gaver.htm.

[9]

Hutchins, E. (1990), The Technology of team navigation. In Intellectual teamwork: social and technical bases of collaborative work. Gallagher, J., Kraut, R. and Egido, C., (eds.), Lawrence Erlbaum.

Digital Library

[10]

NESTA Press Release (2002). Stephen Grand OBE - Will Lucy dream of electric sheep? 11th Nov 2002. www.nesta.org.uk/mediaroom/newsreleases/3127/index.html.

[11]

Furniture And Furnishings. Interaction Design Research, Royal College Of Art, London. www.interaction.rca.ac.uk/equator/weight_furniture.html.

[12]

Sheridan, J. G., Lafond-Favieres, V., Newstetter, W. C. Spectators at a Geek Show: An Ethnographic Inquiry into Wearable Computing. Proceedings of the 4th International Symposium on Wearable Computers (ISWC) (October 18--21 2000) Atlanta USA.

Digital Library

[13]

Suchman, L. (1987). Plans and Situated Actions: The problem of human-machine communication. Cambridge University Press.

Digital Library

[14]

Tooby, J. and L. Cosmides. Evolutionary Psychology: a primer. 1997. on-line at: www.psych.ucsb.edu/research/cep/primer.html.

[15]

L. Uden and A. Dix (2000). Iconic Interfaces For Kids On The Internet. IFIP World Computer Congress, Beijing, August 21--25, 2000, pp. 279--286.

Cited By

Frich JMose Biskjaer MDalsgaard PKoskinen ILim YCerratto-Pargman TChow KOdom W(2018)Twenty Years of Creativity Research in Human-Computer InteractionProceedings of the 2018 Designing Interactive Systems Conference10.1145/3196709.3196732(1235-1257)Online publication date: 8-Jun-2018
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3196709.3196732
Massimi MOdom WBanks RKirk DTan DFitzpatrick GGutwin CBegole BKellogg W(2011)Matters of life and deathProceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems10.1145/1978942.1979090(987-996)Online publication date: 7-May-2011
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/1978942.1979090
Siek KLaMarche JMaitland JFoth MKjeldskov JPaay J(2009)Bridging the information gapProceedings of the 21st Annual Conference of the Australian Computer-Human Interaction Special Interest Group: Design: Open 24/710.1145/1738826.1738841(89-96)Online publication date: 23-Nov-2009
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/1738826.1738841
Show More Cited By

Being playful: learning from children
1. Human-centered computing

Recommendations

The effects of physicality on the child's imagination
C&C '13: Proceedings of the 9th ACM Conference on Creativity & Cognition

This paper investigates the effects of physical objects as support for imagination in the context of enactive storytelling. More specifically, we target nine-year-old children because of their general disengagement from creative activity, a phenomenon ...
YOLO - A Robot that will Make Your Creativity BOOM
HRI '18: Companion of the 2018 ACM/IEEE International Conference on Human-Robot Interaction

One of the functions of creativity is to improve society. Creativity is a skill that can be trained and has proven benefits for the professional and personal development of individuals. Yet, a paradox exists: despite seeking individuals with a greater ...
The effects of visual contextual structures on children's imagination in story authoring interfaces
IDC '14: Proceedings of the 2014 conference on Interaction design and children

This paper investigates how the presentation of contextual visual images may influence a child's imagination during the use of authoring systems to create digital content. This issue is particularly significant to understand what supports the child's ...

Comments

Information & Contributors

Information

Published In

cover image ACM Conferences

IDC '03: Proceedings of the 2003 conference on Interaction design and children

July 2003

164 pages

ISBN:158113732X

DOI:10.1145/953536

Editors:
Stuart MacFarlane
University of Central Lancashire, Preston
,
Tony Nicol
University of Central Lancashire, Preston, UK
,
Janet Read
University of Central Lancashire, UK
,
Linda Snape
University of Central Lancashire, Preston, UK

Copyright © 2003 ACM.

Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for components of this work owned by others than ACM must be honored. Abstracting with credit is permitted. To copy otherwise, or republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. Request permissions from [email protected]

Sponsors

SIGCHI: ACM Special Interest Group on Computer-Human Interaction

Publisher

Association for Computing Machinery

New York, NY, United States

Publication History

Published: 01 July 2003

Permissions

Request permissions for this article.

Request Permissions

Check for updates

Author Tags

Qualifiers

Article

Conference

IDC03

Sponsor:

SIGCHI

IDC03: Interaction Design and Children

July 1 - 3, 2003

Preston, England

Acceptance Rates

Overall Acceptance Rate 172 of 578 submissions, 30%

Contributors

Other Metrics

View Article Metrics

Bibliometrics & Citations

Bibliometrics

Article Metrics

11
Total Citations
View Citations
660
Total Downloads

Downloads (Last 12 months)8
Downloads (Last 6 weeks)1

Reflects downloads up to 28 Jul 2024

Other Metrics

View Author Metrics

Citations

Cited By

Frich JMose Biskjaer MDalsgaard PKoskinen ILim YCerratto-Pargman TChow KOdom W(2018)Twenty Years of Creativity Research in Human-Computer InteractionProceedings of the 2018 Designing Interactive Systems Conference10.1145/3196709.3196732(1235-1257)Online publication date: 8-Jun-2018
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3196709.3196732
Massimi MOdom WBanks RKirk DTan DFitzpatrick GGutwin CBegole BKellogg W(2011)Matters of life and deathProceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems10.1145/1978942.1979090(987-996)Online publication date: 7-May-2011
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/1978942.1979090
Siek KLaMarche JMaitland JFoth MKjeldskov JPaay J(2009)Bridging the information gapProceedings of the 21st Annual Conference of the Australian Computer-Human Interaction Special Interest Group: Design: Open 24/710.1145/1738826.1738841(89-96)Online publication date: 23-Nov-2009
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/1738826.1738841
Weiss AWurhofer DBernhaupt RBeck ETscheligi MHakken DSimonsen JRoberston T(2008)"This is a flying shopping trolley"Proceedings of the Tenth Anniversary Conference on Participatory Design 200810.5555/1795234.1795292(254-257)Online publication date: 1-Oct-2008
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.5555/1795234.1795292
Hsi S(2007)Conceptualizing Learning from the Everyday Activities of Digital KidsInternational Journal of Science Education10.1080/0950069070149407629:12(1509-1529)Online publication date: 8-Oct-2007
https://doi.org/10.1080/09500690701494076
Wyeth PDiercke CViller SRobertson T(2006)Design for inspirationProceedings of the 18th Australia conference on Computer-Human Interaction: Design: Activities, Artefacts and Environments10.1145/1228175.1228247(365-368)Online publication date: 20-Nov-2006
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/1228175.1228247
Sim GMacFarlane SRead J(2006)All work and no play: Measuring fun, usability, and learning in software for childrenComputers & Education10.1016/j.compedu.2005.11.02146:3(235-248)Online publication date: Apr-2006
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.compedu.2005.11.021
Twidale MWang XHinn DChan T(2005)CSCProceedings of th 2005 conference on Computer support for collaborative learning: learning 2005: the next 10 years!10.5555/1149293.1149384(687-696)Online publication date: 30-May-2005
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.5555/1149293.1149384
Neal LPerez RMiller Dvan der Veer GGale C(2005)eLearning and funCHI '05 Extended Abstracts on Human Factors in Computing Systems10.1145/1056808.1057091(2043-2044)Online publication date: 2-Apr-2005
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/1056808.1057091
Davis SCarini C(2005)Constructing a Player-Centred Definition of Fun for Video Games DesignPeople and Computers XVIII — Design for Life10.1007/1-84628-062-1_8(117-132)Online publication date: 2005
https://doi.org/10.1007/1-84628-062-1_8
Show More Cited By

View Options

Get Access

Login options

Check if you have access through your login credentials or your institution to get full access on this article.

Full Access

Get this Publication

View options

PDF

View or Download as a PDF file.

eReader

View online with eReader.

Media

Figures

Other

Tables

View Table of Contents