Specific Design Projects that Involved Children

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CHAPTER 3: LITERATURE REVIEW ON COOPERATIVE DESIGN

Introduction

Cooperative design is a maturing field of research, and an evolving practice among design professionals. Also known as participatory design (PD), Greenbaum and King (1991) describe cooperative design as involving designers and users on an equal footing. It is an approach where users are regarded as the best qualified to determine how to improve their work and life. This chapter discusses cooperative design and cooperative inquiry as distinct sets of design approaches used in the study.

Operational Definitions of Cooperative Design, Participatory Design and Cooperative Inquiry

“Cooperative design” and “participatory design” are used by some researchers interchangeably (Guha et al., 2010; Melonio & Gennari, 2013; Nesset & Large, 2004). Participatory design originated in Scandinavia, and was known as cooperative design. It is rooted in a Scandinavian cooperative design tradition, with a strong emphasis on the political aspects of technology design (Gregory, 2003). In the Swedish discourse, the term ‘cooperative’ was favoured over ‘participatory’ (Holmlid, 2009). In this thesis, ‘cooperative design’ refers to both cooperative design and participatory design, and ‘cooperative inquiry’ is used when referring to designing with children. The term ‘cooperative design’ will be maintained, even though we recognise that the term ‘participatory design’ has gained greater international use (Iversen & Dindler, 2014). From now on, this thesis will use ‘cooperative design’ to also refer to participatory design.

Objectives of the Literature Review on Cooperative design

The main objective in this chapter is to review definitions of ‘cooperative design’ and ‘cooperative inquiry’, in order to establish the international definition of key terms in the thesis. The other objective is to learn about the dominant theoretical frameworks of cooperative inquiry that have guided studies in HCI. The study that this thesis reports on focused on the design of a cross-age tutoring system, based on a social networking platform, using the mentioned design approaches.

Organisation of the Chapter

This chapter is organised into nine sections, of which section 3.1 is the introduction to cooperative design. Sections 3.2 and 3.3 are about the conceptual definitions of the important terms used in the study – that is, cooperative design (CD) and cooperative inquiry (CI). These sections are followed by section 3.4, which concentrates on the theoretical framework of cooperative design in the context of the intended study. Section 3.5 explores what has been done in this area of design, to date. Section 3.6 identifies the gaps in the research. Section 3.7 and 3.8 explore what contribution this intended study will make to the field of HCI. Section 3.9 summarises the chapter.

Cooperative Design (CD)

“Cooperative Design (CD)”, or “co-design”, is an approach that can be described as actively involving the stakeholders, most probably the users, in the design process, where expert designers work with the target audience to solve a problem or improve the quality of working life (Guha et al., 2010; Halskov & Hansen, 2015; Sanders et al., 2010; Walsh, 2012;). Co-design emphasises a more in-depth and often equal partnership between designer and end user, and enlists user participation at earlier stages in the design process (Bodker et al., 1993, 2000; Walsh et al., 2013). CD is widely accepted and applied in research and commercial design projects. It has gained growing acceptance in the world of research, particularly from academic professionals in Europe and North America, who focused on developing new technologies for children (for example, Druin, 1999, 2002; Jones et al., 2003; Kam et al., 2006; Large et al., 2007; Mazzone et al., 2008; Robertson, 2002).
CD has enjoyed successful application in many socio-political contexts in which adults were the target population of study, using CD approaches such as contextual inquiry (Beyer & Holtzblatt, 1998). Contextual inquiry was first articulated in response to the workplace needs of adults (Beyer & Holtzblatt, 1998). Contextual inquiry calls for researchers to collect data in the users’ own environment, by observing them performing typical activities. In the final stages, low-tech prototype mock-ups of the system are developed and tested with users (Large et al., 2007). The use of low-tech paper prototypes, pictorial diagramming, and concrete techniques, is suitable when working with children. Large et al. (2007) argue that contextual inquiry’s emphasis on a team approach and concrete methods of pictorial flowchart data analysis, make it applicable and appropriate in a child-centred context. Currently, CD is being 62 used in a large variety of fields, such as user-centred design, graphic design, software engineering, architecture, public policy, psychology, anthropology and sociology (Muller & Druin, 2012). According to Druin (1999), in contextual inquiry a team of researchers observe and analyse the users’ environment for patterns of activity, communication, artifacts and cultural relationships (Druin, 1999; Good & Robertson, 2006). Over time, these successes have been replicated in many other research contexts, with diverse target populations such as children, individuals with disabilities, and older adults (Benton et al., 2012; Druin, 1999, 2002; Druin et al., 1997; Ellis & Kurniawam, 2000; Frauenberger, Good & Keay-Bright, 2011).
The methodologies of CD have evolved to find application in contexts outside the workplace, such as education (Barab et al., 2005), urban planning and policy (Friedman et al., 2008) and social media (Hagen & Robertson, 2010). Common to all CD endeavours is the central goal of facilitating dialogue among members of design teams (DiSalvo & DiSalvo, 2014).

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Historical Perspectives of Cooperative Design

The historical perspective of cooperative design is relevant, as it allows researchers to uncover how this approach has evolved over time. The cooperative design methodology was used in the Utopia project2 (1981-1985), involving users very early in the design process. They had an early development and application in the use of computers (Bodker et al., 1987, 2000; Ehn, 1988). This was to ‘give the end users a voice’ in the design and development of computer support in workplaces, thus enhancing the quality of the resulting system (Druin et al., 2008). Low-tech prototyping, and early design sessions with users, had great impact on IT design in general (Bodker et al., 2000). Scaife et al. (1999) provide suggestions of design methods which can be employed by different stakeholder groups, such as storyboarding, interviews, high-tech prototyping in multimedia environments, and cognitive and interactivity analysis.
CD has roots in the Scandinavian Cooperative Design tradition (Bjerknes, Ehn & Kyng, 1987; Bodker et al., 1993; Greenbaum & Kyng, 1991; Muller, Wildman & White, 1993; Schuler & Namioka, 1993). It was primarily a political, and idealistic, approach to promote democracy, skilfulness and emancipation, through the design of new technology (Hussain, Sanders, & Steinert, 2012; Nesset & Large, 2004). In the CD traditions, the involvement of users, and building on their activity and participation, is a well-developed technique. In the Scandinavian approaches, during the 1970s and 1980s, the rationale for user participation was partly based on the fact that system developers rarely, if ever, met the real users – or the end users, as they were called (Bjerknes, Ehn & Kyng, 1987; Greenbaum & Kyng, 1991; Holmlid, 2009; Kyng Matthiassen, 1997; Schuler & Namioka, 1993). There was a movement by academics and trade unionists to involve users in the design of the applications that were being designed, to assist their work. It aimed to prevent workers from being disempowered by the tools and computer technologies imposed on them by their employers. CD provided a way to collaboratively develop technology, engaging people in the designs that affected them. Several projects in Scandinavia were aimed at finding effective ways for computer system designers to collaborate with labour organisations to develop systems that most effectively promoted the quality of work and life of workers.

CHAPTER 1: BACKGROUND AND INTRODUCTION
1.1 Background
1.2 Objectives of the Study
1.3 Research Methodology
1.4 The Theoretical Framework
1.5 Research Contributions
1.6 Specific Relevance
1.7 Definition of Terms
1.8 Limitations and Delimitations
1.9 Structure of the Thesis
Summary
CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW ON CROSS-AGE TUTORING 
2.1 Introduction
2.2 Tutoring Models
2.3 Peer Tutoring
2.4 Cross-Age Tutoring
2.5 Social Learning in the Digital Age
2.6 Research Gaps Revealed by the Literature Review
2.7 Summary
CHAPTER 3: LITERATURE REVIEW ON COOPERATIVE DESIGN
3.1 Introduction
3.2 Cooperative Design (CD)
3.3 Cooperative Inquiry (CI)
3.4 Specific Design Projects that Involved Children
3.5 Research Gaps in the Literature
3.6 Closing the Gap
3.7 Summary
CHAPTER 4: RESEARCH METHODOLOGY 
4.1 Introduction
4.2 The Research Process
4.3 Matching Research Methods with the Research Question
4.4 Context, Sampling and Participants
4.5 A Narrative Description of the Research Process
4.6 Data Analysis
4.7 Translation of Design Data into Design Prototype
4.8 Validation and Reliability of Study
4.9 Ethical Aspects
4.10 Summary
CHAPTER 5: DATA ANALYSIS: REFLECTION ON THE DESIGN PROCESS
5.1 Introduction
5.2 Phase 1: Willingness of teenagers to participate in tutoring
5.3 Phase 2: Face-to-face tutoring sessions
5.4 Phase 3: Design Sessions
5.5 The Link between the Findings and the Theoretical Framework of this Study
5.6 Summary
CHAPTER 6: DESIGN AND DEVELOPMENT OF THE TUTORING SYSTEM
6.1 Introduction
6.2 Awareness of the Problem
6.3 Solution Suggestion
6.4 Development of the Tutoring System
6.5 Evaluation of TitanTutor
6.6 Adapted Design
6.7 Conclusion Regarding the Design of the TitanTutor System
6.8 Summary
CHAPTER 7: RESEARCH CONTRIBUTIONS
7.1 Introduction
7.2 Defining the CD2C Design Framework
7.3 Research Contributions
7.4 Summary
CHAPTER 8: CONCLUSIONS AND FUTURE WORK 
8.1 Introduction
8.2 Research Summary
8.3 Lessons Learnt from the Literature Review and the Design Process
8.4 Answers to the Research Question and Sub-Questions (SQ)
8.5 Reflection on and Limitations of the Study
8.6 Future Directions
8.7 Summary
REFERENCES
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Cooperative design of a cross-age tutoring system based on a social networking platform

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