Exploring Opportunities for Scalable Outcomes of Co-design Activities with Marginalised Groups of Children
Laura Scheepmaker · 2018
My PhD work seeks to explore roles for digital playthings to support groups of children with mixed abilities in co-located, social play. In a Participatory Design process I investigate how children and other stakeholders can be involved in creating such technology with a particular focus on how to scale outcomes from the idiosyncratic context of the project to increase their impact in a broader inclusive educational environment. Within the Social Play Technologies project we conduct co-design workshops to support marginalised groups of children in the design process and collaboratively create smart artefacts for social play activities. With my PhD research I aim to bridge the gap between co-design workshops as research practice and scalable project out- comes that reach beyond the project's scope. To this end I ask what constitutes outcomes and explore different ways to expand their impact by involving key stakeholders such as relevant industry, policy makers or education provides. As a result, I develop a methodological framework that sup- ports designers to create spaces for negotiation in partici- patory design (PD) projects with diverse stakeholders and to take their outcomes beyond academic practices.