CHI 2009 Workshop: Tangibles for Children

Introduction - Call for journal papers - Organizers - Workshop program & participants

Tangibles for Children

In recent years, research on tangible interaction has grown steadily. A significant proportion of this work involves children and aspires to offer benefits through tangibility related to ease of use and overall user experience while also supporting learning and developmental processes.

However, research on tangible interaction lacks empirical validation of the alleged positive effects.

The workshop and the special issue in the journal aim to attract researchers who approach this topic of tangibility and children from an empirical or design perspective.

The purpose is to:

1. obtain a good picture of what benefits we expect tangibility to provide (including novel and future applications)
2. gather current empirical evidence to support the assumed benefits (and costs) of tangibility
3. discuss appropriate evaluation methodologies for assessing benefits of tangibles with children

The workshop discussion is centered around the idea of the T-CuBe. We encourage workshop participants to make an effort of positioning their research within this matrix which will list Tangibles and the Child-user Benefits. We do not want to force a decontextualised view on tangible interaction. Instead, the T-CuBe will function as a conceptual tool that structures the workshop.

In sum, the workshop aims to produce five outputs:

• Summary of proceedings
• Call for papers for a special issue of a journal on this topic
• Matrix/poster that lists Tangibles and the Child-user Benefits (T-CuBe)
• Discussion forum to bring researchers together on the Tangint wiki
• Provocative statements to conclude the workshop and open new areas for further work and discussions