The Giggle Gauge offers a quick and simple way for researchers to evaluate the engagement of systems designed for children. This self-report metric is based on prior work delineating the components of engagement and was designed to address the limitations of children's cognitive development (e.g., by focusing on simple language and rapid administration). Through a process of iterative design (N = 23, ages 4 -- 10) and co-design (N = 8, ages 7 -- 11), we refined the items of this metric to ensure children's comprehension. A validation study with 26 children, ages 4 -- 7, confirmed the validity and reliability of the Giggle Gauge through the assessment of three properties: known-groups validity, criterion validity, and test-retest reliability. We simultaneously developed a bifurcated response type, intended to reduce the cognitive load of traditional ordinal response, and show through participant quotes that it may decrease the cognitive load of self-report questions for children.

As more children's technologies are designed to be used with a global audience, new tools need to be created to include more children's voices in the design process. However, working with those children who are geographically distributed as design partners is difficult because existing technologies either do not support distributed design, or are not child-friendly. Industries that produce items for children to consume have begun using traditionally academic co-design techniques in order to design new products and experiences for children. As these groups need to reach out to more diverse and global populations, they will begin using technologies that support distributed co-design. As child-computer interaction researchers, we have a duty to understand this concept and identify recommendations for others to use that incorporate the ideals of our field. In order to do this, this paper describes the design process of an online environment to support geographically distributed, intergenerational co-design. Within this environment, children can work together despite differences of time zones, geographic location, or availability. The online environment was deployed for eight weeks during the summer and was modified each week throughout that time to better support the participants. Based on the experiences of participants within the environment, we make suggestions for new technologies including user management tools, creative expression tools, and ad hoc team membership that encourage more voices in the design process.

Researchers at the University of Maryland’s Human-Computer Interaction Lab conducted three studies spanning five years by visiting the homes of participants to investigate how children and adolescents search on the Internet. This chapter describes how the authors approached an exploratory research study by drawing from broad methods, including Grounded Theory and ethnography. The authors detail their experiences while planning, recruiting, and scheduling interviews; describe ethical considerations; and discuss the formation of their research team and their approach to diverse families. The chapter includes challenges the authors encountered while in the field, including differing levels of comfort with recording devices, over-eager parents, hungry and distracted child participants, and hectic family homes. For each problem, the authors share techniques they used to overcome the challenges and generalize from the context of their study by drawing lessons for other researchers planning in-home research with children and adolescents.

Since 2008, at the University of Maryland we have explored how children search the Internet (Druin et al., 2009, 2010; Foss et al., 2012, 2013; Foss, 2014). We conducted the first iteration of our research with 83 children, and returned to 50 of the same participants approximately 4 years later to examine searching changes in the home context. Our focus was not on documenting portions of the search process, but rather on understanding child searchers from a child-centric perspective. Our team of researchers sought to understand emotional reactions and beliefs, interactions with the interface and other people, and progressive steps taken to reach a conclusion to the search from parent and child participants in the home setting. The outcome of this approach was a framework of search roles displayed by children when searching.

The roles of Social and Power form a final grouping focused around the high level of search skill displayed by children searching. These two roles overlap heavily, with many children falling into both roles. Social Searchers are less skilled than Power Searchers, although still are notably skilled in their own right. Children in both roles are further distinguished by the amount of verbal discussion in which they engage, although for Power Searchers, the content of the discussion is largely disclosing their search knowledge, and for Social Searchers, the content of the discussion is largely focused on how others triggered or helped with their search experience.

Searching the Internet and the ability to competently use search engines are increasingly becoming an important part of children's daily lives. Whether mobile or at home, children use search interface

Rule-bound, Domain-specific, and Visual Searchers have more apparent differences from each other than similarities, making their grouping somewhat counterintuitive. However, searchers in these three roles are notably more skilled than Non-motivated or Distracted Searchers, and yet lag far behind Power and Social Searchers (see Chapter 5). Rule-bound, Domain-specific, and Visual Searchers are roles largely defined by search preferences; search is restricted by predetermined and self-imposed guidelines, or self-limited to within a topic area, or to information in visual format.

Performative Experience Design (PED) is an extension of experience design focusing on the unique timebound encounter between performers and spectators. Technology is purposefully designed to enhance the experience between audience and performers. PED has been studied with adult participants; however, it has not been explored with children. We conducted a Cooperative Inquiry session to explore 1) how children want to interact with live performances; 2) how they seek to change a story in live performances; and 3) a specific technique that might facilitate designing for such interactions. We present our initial findings regarding children's perceptions of what constitutes live performance and the ways in which children want to use technology to interact with, direct, and respond to narrative structures and characters within live performances. We include a discussion of the features of a specific codesign technique for supporting the ideation process of our child designers.

The philosophy of Participatory Design (PD) maintains that the end users of a technology should be represented during the design process of that technology (Schuler & Namioka, 1993). When developers of software or other technologies work with the intended users of their products during the design process, the eventual products should better suit the specific needs of the user group. While PD is traditionally practiced with adults (eg Kensing & Blomberg, 1998), researchers have extended the philosophy of inclusion inherent in PD to children (eg Druin, 1999). Methods within the PD philosophy for accomplishing design work with children are broad, with ideal method choice largely dependent on the context of the design work (Scaife & Rogers, 1999).Existing research establishes that children with disabilities should have equal opportunities as children with typical development to impact the design of technology (Alper, Hourcade, & Gilutz, 2012). Further, children with disabilities experience benefits when they engage in PD activities. For example, technologies developed using PD methods with children with disabilities have been shown to improve communication skills (Bonsignore, Quinn, Druin, & Bederson, 2013; DeLeo & Leroy, 2008), provide entertainment for children (Alper et al., 2012), expand learning experiences, and allow for improved social interactions (Madsen et al., 2009). While these studies have had success working with children with learning differences, there remains a need to develop a deeper sense of the methods and practices needed for engaging such groups in participatory design.

Cooperative Inquiry is a method of developing technology in which children and adults are partners in the design process. Researchers use Cooperative Inquiry to empower children in the design of their own technology and to design technology that is specific to children's needs and wants. As Cooperative Inquiry is continually evolving and expanding, it is important to consider how researchers can extend this inclusive design approach to work with populations of children with disabilities. In a semester-long case study, researchers explored the use of Cooperative Inquiry in a classroom of middle school boys with learning differences, including mild to moderate autism, specific learning disabilities, and Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD). The participating class of 10 boys ages 11–12 designed a browser-based computer game using Cooperative Inquiry over the course of six design sessions. During the project, the children had overall positive experiences and were able to form partnerships with the adult researchers to develop the game. Based on the experiences of all the team members, researchers make recommendations for employing Cooperative Inquiry in special education classrooms. These include adding informal time during the design sessions, maintaining a high adult-to-child ratio, giving instructions using many modalities, and planning for high engagement. Through this work, researchers broaden Cooperative Inquiry's applicability to a new population in a classroom setting, and provide guidance for designing with populations of children with special leaning needs in the future.

In this paper, we present a framework that describes commonly used design techniques for Participatory Design with children. Although there are many currently used techniques for designing with children, researchers working in differing contexts and in a changing technological landscape find themselves facing difficult design situations. The FACIT PD framework presented in this paper can aid in choosing existing design techniques or in developing new techniques regardless of the stage in the design cycle, the technology being developed, or philosophical approach to design method. The framework consists of eight dimensions, concerning the design partners, the design goal, and the design technique. The partner dimensions are partner experience and need for accommodation . The design goal dimensions are design space and maturity of design . The technique dimensions include: cost, portability, technology and physical interaction . Three cases will be presented which describe new techniques developed using the framework and two cases will describe existing techniques.

In this article, we present an in-home observation and in-context research study investigating how 38 adolescents aged 14–17 search on the Internet. We present the search trends adolescents display and develop a framework of search roles that these trends help define. We compare these trends and roles to similar trends and roles found in prior work with children ages 7, 9, and 11. We use these comparisons to make recommendations to adult stakeholders such as researchers, designers, and information literacy educators about the best ways to design search tools for children and adolescents, as well as how to use the framework of searching roles to find better methods of educating youth searchers. Major findings include the seven roles of adolescent searchers, and evidence that adolescents are social in their computer use, have a greater knowledge of sources than younger children, and that adolescents are less frustrated by searching tasks than younger children. © 2013 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

This paper discusses the challenges inherent in conducting research with young participants. Based on a series of three studies with children ranging in age from 7--17 as examples, the paper contains descriptions of participant recruitment approaches and challenges. Also included is a discussion of issues surrounding the retention of participants for longitudinal studies, including specific issues for participant retention and loss. Overall, this paper provides detailed experiences of the challenges of large-scale long-term field work with children, and provides guidance for others who are in similar research situations.

Cooperative Inquiry is a Participatory Design method that involves children (typically 7--11 years old) as full partners with adults in the design of technologies intended for use by children. For many years, child designers have worked together with adults in Cooperative Inquiry approaches. However, in the past children have not typically initiated the design problems tackled by the intergenerational team, nor have they acted in leadership roles by conducting design sessions-- until now. In this paper, we detail three case studies of Cooperative Inquiry in which children led the process of design, from initial problem formulation through one iteration of design review and elaboration. We frame our analysis from three perspectives on the design process: behaviors exhibited by child leaders and their fellow co-designers; supports required for child leaders; and views expressed by child leaders and their co-design cohort about the sessions that they led.