Evaluating Children's Interactive Products directly addresses the need to ensure that interactive products designed for children — whether toys, games, educational products, or websites — are safe, effective, and entertaining. It presents an essential background in child development and child psychology, particularly as they relate to technology; captures best practices for observing and surveying children, training evaluators, and capturing the child user experience using audio and visual technology; and examines ethical and legal issues involved in working with children and offers guidelines for effective risk management. Based on the authors' workshops, conference courses, and own design experience and research, this highly practical book reads like a handbook, while being thoroughly grounded in the latest research. Throughout, the authors illustrate techniques and principles with numerous mini case studies and highlight practical information in tips and exercises and conclude with three in-depth case studies. This book is recommended for usability experts, product developers, and researchers in the field. - Presents an essential background in child development and child psychology, particularly as they relate to technology - Captures best practices for observing and surveying children, training evaluators, and capturing the child user experience using audio and visual technology - Examines ethical and legal issues involved in working with children and offers guidelines for effective risk management

Interaction Design and Children surveys the research on children's cognitive and motor development, safety issues related to technologies and design methodologies and principles. It also provides an overview of current research trends in the field of interaction design and children and identifies challenges for future research.

Compiled by a leading authority in the field of children's technology, this book brings together current discussions of how and why new technologies are being designed. It presents innovative methods, techniques, and ideas, making this a unique resource for developers of children's software, hardware, and multimedia products; graphic/human interface designers; and university faculty doing research in the area of children and technology. * Case studies, commercial products, and academic research projects * Overview of present and future trends in computer technologies for children * Design practices from university and industry researchers that can aid readers in developing their own approaches to creating and using computer technologies for children

Design and technology education is now an established field of study in primary schools and in many early childhood centres. Authors Marilyn Fleer and Beverley Jane offer the definitive text on this curriculum area. Design and Technology for Children 3e is a comprehensive and innovative account of teaching and research in design and technology education. It gives pre-service and in-service teachers opportunities to reflect upon and further develop their understanding of technology and technological knowledge, and to consider several different approaches in a practical and interactive way. he third edition has been written to reflect current research and practice in design and technology education for Australian children and pre-service teachers.

This book is a way of sharing insights empirically gathered, over decades of interactive media development, by the author and other children’s designers. Included is as much emerging theory as possible in order to provide background for practical and technical aspects of design while still keeping the information accessible. The author's intent for this book is not to create an academic treatise but to furnish an insightful and practical manual for the next generation of children’s interactive media and game designers. Key Features Provides practical detailing of how children's developmental needs and capabilities translate to specific design elements of a piece of media Serves as an invaluable reference for anyone who is designing interactive games for children (or adults) Detailed discussions of how children learn and how they play Provides lots of examples and design tips on how to design content that will be appealing and effective for various age ranges Accessible approach, based on years of successful creative business experience, covers basics across the gamut from developmental needs and learning theories to formats, colors, and sounds

Today's children are typically more techno savvy than adults, and they're expecting more and more sophisticated interactive products. Web 2.0 opens up unprecedented possibilities in the realm of interactive media for children - including virtual worlds, flexible and evolving avatars, social networks, end user programs, mobile applications, educational applications, and internet games. UX designers are the ones who create these products and plenty of literature exists on general UX design, but so little addresses children's design in depth. Decades of research prove that children use and engage with technology differently than adults. Conversely, there is a great deal of academic- and research-based literature on children's design, but it offers little applicable guidance. The market needs a practical book for UX practitioners who are facing the unique design challenges inherent in designing for children (including age considerations, gender, what keeps kids engaged) for the booming Web 2.0 era. Designing Interactive Media for Children - written by a practitioner for practitioners - fills this hole in the market.

Technology is meant to make life easier and to raise its quality. Our interaction with technology should be designed according to human needs instead of us being required to adapt to technology. Even so, technology may change quickly and people and their habits change slowly. With the aim of supporting user acceptance of iTV, the focus of this book is on the usability of iTV applications. A method for developing interaction design patterns especially for new technologies is presented for the first time. The main characteristics covered in this new approach are: systematic identification of recurrent design problems; usability as a quality criterion for design solutions; integration of designers into the pattern development process including identification of designers' needs, and iterative evaluation and optimisation of patterns to encourage designers to accept and use them; usability testing to identify proven design solutions and their trade-offs; presentation of specific design guidelines.

Considers the various roles children have played in the technology design process, with a focus on those that integrally involve children throughout the process. Summarizes and provides a pragmatic foundation for researchers and practitioners to use several methods and techniques for designing technologies with and for children.