ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses methods that go beyond merely adding users—methods to create new settings and experiences that can assist computer professionals to work in partnership with diverse users in improving both computer technology and the understandings that make computer technologies successful in real use. It suggests that there are four roles children can play in the design process: user, tester, informant, and design partner. Adapting the notions of changing the “power structures,” researchers have sought to give children a voice in the design of new technologies with the belief that more appropriate solutions can be found. E. B.-N. Sanders’ say-do-make framework can also be used, in an analytic decomposition, to describe participatory opportunities in more challenging design settings. A. Noble and C. Robinson formed an alliance between an undergraduate design class at Massey University and a union of low-status service workers, developing photo documentaries of service work.
