Developing Software for Children: Experiences from Creating a 3D Drawing Application

Abstract

The creation of good software for children poses a particular challenge to interface designers. This paper explores lessons learned during the design and development of a 3D drawing application for children with children. It focuses on the user-centered design approach especially towards childrendesigner experiences in conducting the evaluation process throughout different development stages with children of a broad range of ages. We argue that developers can optimize their software with children as design partner, especially in the evaluation process by seizing the children’s abilities and directness in criticism. By enabling children to become partners—according to their capabilities—in the design and evaluation process, they can give relevant input not only to improve the product but also to contribute to best practice examples for children software.