Designing front-end participatory tools with and for children

Kristin Hughes, Associate Professor
School of Design, Carnegie Mellon University

The growing concern over childhood obesity places us at a critical time.
Educators, and public health professionals need to come together to rethink
the ways we design, communicate and teach health literacy and awareness to
children. In many public schools there is access to free health services,
but often times confusing language and mixed messages create communication
barriers and issues of mistrust and disengagement on the part of the
students, parents and teachers.

Fitwits is a collaborative research project charged with raising health and
nutrition awareness for children and families. We developed several methods
that helped us to understand how kids talk and understand issues surrounding
health and physical activity. The design team spent six months collaborating
with children ages 9-12, planning and inventing hands-on games and
activities. The process of designing customized participatory tools for kids
was time consuming, but essential. For many designers the idea of making
artifacts for the purpose of “discovery” not “delivery” can be met with much
resistance on both the part of the client and designer. This presentation
will highlight a wonderful, fun, front-end process that that resulted in the
design of tools to help kids think, share and engage in conversations about
health and health awareness in the Pittsburgh Public Schools.