This ongoing project is situated in the intersection of two disciplines: cognitive development and interaction design for children. The goal of the project is to develop an evidence-based design tool that multidisciplinary teams can use to develop tangible interfaces that scaffold preschooler’s spatial learning. In particular, we look at the effects of storytelling and guided play on the acquisition of mental rotation skills while children aged 26 to 43 months are playing with physical geometrical objects referred to as manipulatives.

In the first stage of this research, we developed a theoretical framework for which we relied on spatial learning theories in cognitive developmental studies and child-tangible interaction tools found in child-computer interaction research. A journal publication about the framework is currently under revision. Afterwards, we conducted a series of empirical studies with preschoolers. In these studies, children interacted with different types of manipulatives such as Tangram and Fröbel Gifts to gain insight in children’s mental rotation action patterns, important for spatial learning. By doing so, we investigated children’s interactions with manipulatives guided by narratives and parental gestures. Based on the results of these empirical studies, we developed a first version of the design tool. The tool is composed of a set of cards inspired by the DSD cards (Antle and Bekker, 2013), and aims to inform designers and other stakeholders about preschooler’s child developmental needs for spatial learning. In addition, information is included about how designers can use storytelling and guided play principles to improve children’s engagement and enhance their early spatial learning.

Design Workshops with Interdisciplinary Teams

Currently, we are conducting a series of expert workshops with people from different backgrounds (e.g. interaction design, industrial design, game design, cognitive developmental psychology, education, child development) to further refine and validate the design tool. In the first part of the workshops, the participants use the design tool to develop concepts and prototypes for tangible user interfaces (TUIs). In the second part, they evaluate the usefulness of the design tool and indicate areas for improvement.

The future direction of the research is twofold: The first is to improve DSD Cards as a design tool and use them in the further workshops with game designers. The second is to create the scenario with different difficulty levels adjusted to the children’s abilities, and develop a design brief for a prototype which will be tested with children in the further case study. The interpretation of results and ideation for design process elicited from the workshops is expected to inform a prospective tangible interaction design for spatial learning of preschoolers.

Keywords: Child-computer interaction, Early spatial learning, Child-tangible interaction, Child-centered design methods.
Team: Gökçe Elif Baykal, Assist. Prof. Tilbe Göksun, Assist. Prof. Asım Evren Yantaç

Developmental needs and abilities of children under 4 years old have been insufficiently taken into account at the early stages of technology design. Bekker and Antle (2013) created developmentally situated design (DSD) cards as a design tool to inform children’s technology designers about children’s development starting from 5 years of age. For our project, we customized DSD cards for a specific developmental skill (i.e., spatial learning) of children between 2- and 4-year-olds for tangible interaction design. The cards were evaluated after a user study in which 19 participants from different backgrounds used the cards in three design workshops.

Keywords: Child-computer interaction, Early spatial learning, Child-tangible interaction, Child-centered design methods.
Team: Gökçe Elif Baykal, Assist. Prof. Tilbe Göksun, Assist. Prof. Asım Evren Yantaç