Pictures from IDC2008

See all IDC2008 pictures on Flickr

Welcome to the Website of the
2008 Conference on Interaction Design for Children

Each day, we interact with hundreds of technological devices that help us organize our lives, achieve our goals, and indulge in our passions. For children today, technology is especially pervasive in all aspects of life. They learn and play using computers and other technological devices; as they grow, they build and maintain friendships using computers and mobile phones; they interact with one another virtually; and even find critical interpersonal support and therapy using computers, the internet and other technology-enhanced products.

Given the ubiquity of technology in children's lives, it is surprising that so few venues bring together those who are concerned with designing the technologies and the interactions with technology that are so important to children's lives. For this reason, IDC 2008 brought together, in the diverse city of Chicago, an international community of researchers, educators, and industry professionals concerned with interaction design for children, in order to think outside the toy-box.

The goals of the 2008 conference were to better understand children\'s needs, and how to design for them, by presenting and discussing the most innovative research in the field of interaction design for children, by exhibiting the most recent developments in design and design methodologies, and by gathering the leading minds in the field of interaction design for children - all in one place.

It is time to stop thinking of computers as the primary locus of technological design - this year we invited researchers to submit work on everything from cell phones to smart nail polish, from infant programming tools to technological design competitions for teens, and the papers we received reflected this diversification of technology for young people. It is also time to stop thinking of "children" as a homogeneous group - this year we hosted workshops for researchers designing for children with special needs, and concerning interaction design for marginalized young people, and we hosted a doctoral consortium for promising younger scholars. Invited panels on Screen Cultures and on Bridging the Gap between Theory and Practice addressed over-arching issues in the field, and a keynote by Dr. Charlotte Cole of Sesame Workshop spoke to issues of globalization and localization. Finally, this year we invited researchers to step outside the domains of learning and play, and to consider designing for civic involvement, for democracy, and for physical well-being.

Areas of Discussion

• Emerging or new technologies and their impact on children's health, education or play
• Methods and techniques for establishing children's requirements for interactive systems
• Guidelines for the design of interactive systems for children, with a specific focus this year on children as a diverse group (children with special needs, children from developing nations, very young children, race, gender, and ethnicity concerns)
• Reports on the development of creative interactive systems for children (motivation, design, outcome, evaluation)
• Usability, enjoyability, accessibility, ethics, and safety issues, with particular reference to children
• Innovative evaluation methods for use with children
• Evaluations of interactive systems and technologies for children
• Novel theoretical models of interaction with special relevance to children
• Results of ethnographic and case studies in children's use of interactive systems
• Stimulating in-depth analyses of issues related to interaction design and children
• Effects of interactive technologies in children's lives (e.g. game violence and aggression, obesity, learning...)
• Design and evaluation of interactive systems for children with special needs
• Design for civic involvement, for democracy, and for physical and emotional well-being of children.
• Special pre-conference workshops on designing technologies for children with special needs, and ICTs and marginalized young people.

This conference built on the successes and high standards of the previous IDC conferences (IDC 2007 in Aalborg, Denmark, IDC 2006 in Tampere, Finland, IDC 2005 in Boulder, USA, IDC 2004 in Maryland, USA, IDC 2003 in Preston, UK and IDC 2002 in Eindhoven, the Netherlands).

Pictures from IDC2008

Go to IDC08 Album