KidCraft: Co-Designing within a Game Environment

Abstract

Co-design research with children is a field that continues to find new ground and expand as it explores new, and more effective ways to design. As children become more enveloped in a world of technology and video games, it follows to leverage these kinds of experiences for use in our design toolbox. In addition, continuing to explore how to include a larger global audience through distributed co-design can advance the design process. The study presented in this paper serves as a preliminary exploration of virtual sandbox game environments as a co-design tool. Utilizing a design inclusive research approach, we discuss what led us to explore this environment as a co-design tool, how it evolved over time, our success in using it to include those who could not attend in-person sessions, and our plans to expand on this research in the future.