Abstract
Children play games, chat with friends, tell stories, study history or math, and today this can all be done
supported by new technologies. From the Internet to multimedia authoring tools, technology is changing
the way children live and learn. As these new technologies become ever more critical to our children’s
lives, we need to be sure these technologies support children in ways that make sense for them as young
learners, explorers, and avid technology users. This may seem of obvious importance, because for almost
20 years the Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) community has pursued new ways to understand users of
technology. However, with children as users, it has been difficult to bring them into the design process.
Children go to school for most of their days; there are existing power structures, biases, and assumptions
between adults and children to get beyond; and children, especially young ones have difficulty in
verbalizing their thoughts. For all of these reasons, a child’s role in the design of new technology has
historically been minimized. Based upon a survey of the literature and my own research experiences with
children, this paper defines a framework for understanding the various roles children can have in the design
process, and how these roles can impact technologies that are created.
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