Timeless Homes: Exploring Genealogy and Family Histories through Co-Design with Children

Genealogy and family history build the narratives of our family. By exploring these topics, children can make concrete and personal connections to larger historical themes. However, little is known about how to design genealogy and family history interactive applications for children. In this exploratory study, we consider what children want to know about these topics and how children want to interact with genealogical tools. We conducted 2 co-design sessions using the Cooperative Inquiry approach, Big Paper and Layered Elaboration, with an intergenerational design team that included 8 children ages 7-11. Our exploratory results indicate that 1) children are more interested in "fun facts" than kinship; 2) they are interested in geographical aspects of genealogy and family history such as migration history; and 3) they express and develop interests in broader historical topics such as artifacts from ancestors' eras during the design process.