title: The child's perspective as a guiding principle: Young children as co-designers in the design of an interactive application meant to facilitate participation in healthcare situations.
abstract: During the last decade, interactive technology has entered mainstream society. Its many users also include children, even the youngest ones, who use the technology in different situations for both fun and learning. When designing technology for children, it is crucial to involve children in the process in order to arrive at an age-appropriate end product. In this study we describe the specific iterative process by which an interactive application was developed. This application is intended to facilitate young children's, three-to five years old, participation in healthcare situations. We also describe the specific contributions of the children, who tested the prototypes in a preschool, a primary health care clinic and an outpatient unit at a hospital, during the development process. The iterative phases enabled the children to be involved at different stages of the process and to evaluate modifications and improvements made after each prior iteration. The children contributed their own perspectives (the child's perspective) on the usability, content and graphic design of the application, substantially improving the software and resulting in an age-appropriate product.
authors.affiliation: School of Health, Care and Social Welfare, Mälardalen University, Sweden. Electronic address: anna.stalberg@mdh.se.
authors.forename: Anna
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Stålberg
authors.affiliation: School of Education, Culture and Communication, Mälardalen University, Sweden.
authors.forename: Anette
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Sandberg
authors.affiliation: School of Health, Care and Social Welfare, Mälardalen University, Sweden.
authors.forename: Maja
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Söderbäck
authors.affiliation: School of Innovation, Design and Engineering, Mälardalen University, Sweden.
authors.forename: Thomas
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Larsson
mesh_terms: D002675:Child, Preschool; D003695:Delivery of Health Care; D006801:Humans; D007858:Learning; D010358:Patient Participation; D012984:Software; D014584:User-Computer Interface
keywords: Application; Children; Child’s perspective; Healthcare situation; Participation; Participatory design