‘Methods of Working with Teenagers in Interaction Design’ – a workshop at the CHI2013 Conference, Paris 23/05/2013
As part of CHI2013 , the workshop: ‘Methods of Working with Teenagers in Interaction Design’ brought together a range of people working/designing with teenagers in different areas of interaction design. The workshop was led by Janet Read from the University of Central Lancashire, a well-known researcher in this area, together with Ole Iversen from the Aarhus University. UCHD’s Helena contributed with a short paper called “Bodymapping: A Way To Engage Young People With Long-Term Conditions”. Helena focussed on the bodymapping method used in UCHD’s ‘Young people with diabetes’ project. She showed how this method can be used to engage young people with long term conditions and help them to express their feelings and concerns.
The short presentations from each participant at the beginning of the workshop showed that a number of people from Norway, Canada and the UK are working with teenagers in a hospital setting. It also became clear that many new, innovative and technology led approaches (e.g. video stories) are now being used instead of more traditional Human Computer Interaction methods (e.g. observations). During the second part of the workshop there was further discussion about the methods currently being used by participants. These ranged from traditional questionnaires and user studies to more innovative tools such as using technology or live theatre performance. The group also looked to the future, how methods might be further developed and applied appropriately depending on context and culture.
At the end of the workshop there was a call for contributions to a special issue of the ‘International Journal of Child-Computer Interaction’. This special issue will cover topics such as future perspectives on designing with teenagers; what period should be defined as adolescence and mistakes researchers make when working with this population.
Helena also visited the first day of the CHI2013 conference attending crowdsourcing, social network activism and co-design sessions.
