Handbook of Design in Educational Technology

9 Issues and Methods for Involving Young People in Design

Judy Robertson, Judith Good, Katy Howland, and Andrew Macvean

1 Introduction

The concept of involving users in the design of the technology which affects them has been an area of interest since the politically inspired research on participatory design in the Scandinavian workplace during the early 1980s (Spinuzzi, 2002). Ehn identifies two important features of the participatory design strategy: the political aspect of democracy in which users are empowered through contributing to design, and the technical aspect in which the participation of users results in more successful design and higher quality products (Ehn, 1993). This chapter considers the ways in which children and young people ...