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Interaction Design Research With Adolescents: Methodological Challenges and Best Practices Erika S. Poole and Tamara Peyton College of Information Sciences and Technology Pennsylvania State University University Park, PA 16802 USA
{esp13, tpeyton}@psu.edu In this paper, we provide a primer on how to conduct interaction design research with adolescents, focusing specifically on issues that may arise during interviews, focus groups, and ethnographic observations used during formative stages of interaction design processes. A unique challenge of conducting research with children and adolescents is that one’s own memories and experiences of childhood [14]—as well as pop culture portrayals of teenage life [11]—may unintentionally bias researchers and practitioners. Rather than deferring to intuition and one’s own experience when working with adolescent participants, we argue that there is a need for formal guidance on adolescent-focused interaction design research. Drawing on best practices from other research disciplines that study aspects of youth life, we distill guidance for interaction design research and practice. Specifically, we clarify:
ABSTRACT Adolescents represent nearly one-fifth of the planet’s population, yet the interaction design literature offers little guidance on the unique needs, opportunities, and challenges of designing for this age group. In this paper, we provide guidance on interaction design with adolescents, grounded in methodological and behavioral sciences literature. We clarify what adolescence is and what the needs of adolescents are with respect to their cognitive, emotional, social, and physical changes. We present and discuss common pitfalls that can occur in research and design projects involving adolescent populations. We single out of video data gathering methods as a particularly apropos approach to understanding teen populations and offer up an overview our own approach to videography, called ‘mobile video collage’. We conclude with a call to the field of interaction design and children to better understand the unique position, needs and values of adolescents.
1) 2)
Categories and Subject Descriptors
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H.5.m. Information interfaces and presentation (e.g., HCI): Miscellaneous.
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General Terms Design, Human Factors
What adolescence is; the cognitive, emotional, social, and physical changes that occur during this time period; common pitfalls that can occur in research and design projects involving adolescent; and recommendations of how to use various data collection and design techniques with this age group, showcasing our own video collage approach to videography for health projects.
2. What is Adolescence?
Keywords
Adolescence has been described as an artificial invention of industrialized societies as part of labor protections [5, 19, 28], though more recent research finds that adolescence is a stage of life recognized by many societies worldwide [36]. Depending on the society, adolescence is a time of many life events such as completing compulsory schooling, moving away from parents, holding jobs, and civic participation. Adolescents are heavily impacted by social changes in education, employment, family structures and citizenship [26, 46]. Their identity development is also influenced strongly by racial divides [33], media portrayals [10], geographical location (urban versus rural), socioeconomic positioning [19] and the fracturing of social programs [26, 27]. The end of adolescence may be marked by rites of passage, such as a formal ceremony, or by participation in “adult” activities such as voting, alcohol consumption, marriage, or military service [3, 11]. In the following sections, we provide further insight into the characteristics and challenges of adolescence.
Adolescents; Interaction Design; Research methods
1. Introduction Adolescence is a pivotal time in human development. During this period, children transform into adults, with rapid changes in physical, cognitive, social, and emotional development. Although legally considered “children” [2], the needs and capabilities of adolescents differ from that of pre-school or school-age children, who have been the primary focus of the interaction design for children literature [24]. Overall, the interaction design literature offers little guidance on the unique needs, opportunities, and challenges of designing for this distinct stage of life [44], despite the fact that over 1.2 billion people worldwide are between the ages of 10 and 19 [3].
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2.1 Start and End of Adolescence The start and endpoints of childhood and adolescence differ across—and even within—societies. In the United States, the National Institutes of Health considers anyone under 21 to be a child, whereas the Food and Drug Administration consider persons under 16 as children. States have a variety of ages for being considered child, adult, or in between [2]. The World Health Organization [43] says adolescence starts at 10 and ends at
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19, but popular imagination sees adolescence as ending precisely at either 18 or 20, when a person leaves their ‘teen’ years. Recent neurobiological research suggests that changes beginning in adolescence may, in fact, extend into a person’s 20s [11]. Moreover, defining the beginning of adolescence is challenging. Although the onset of puberty—complete with a growth spurt and sexual organ development—appears to be a convenient starting point, the onset of puberty has sex-based and individual variance. Physical changes typically attributed to “adolescents” may begin as early as the age of 6 or as late as 15 [13].
Despite this negative framing of adolescents, the majority of youth passing through this period of life emerge unscathed and well-adjusted [8, 11], with only a minority of youth experiencing severe behavioral or social problems. Framing adolescence as a “problem” impacts opportunity for adolescents in the marketplace, the workplace, in government, and at home. As discussed by Galambos and Leadbetter [19], the problem frame extends to research done on adolescence issues and opportunities, in which literature on the problems of adolescence is far greater in quantity and scope than that of work on adolescent life generally or positively.
For the purposes of our discussion, we may consider adolescence as being two distinct periods: early adolescence (roughly 10-14) and late adolescence (roughly 15-19). Early adolescence is characterized by immense physical and cognitive development. Deferring to peer-group opinion, sensation seeking, and participation in risk-taking behaviors are common [11]; risktaking is especially correlated with early onset of puberty. Of particular note, however, is that during early adolescence, important brain development occurs. This brain development provides the ability for adolescents to answer hypothetical questions, reflect on how choices may impact the future, make plans for the future, and recognize that others have points of view differing from their own [30].Typically, these changes correspond more closely to age and experience rather than onset of puberty [11]. These changes have immense consequences in how researchers can and should involve teenagers in research; we return to these points later. During late adolescence, the brain and body continue developing, but perhaps less dramatically. Risktaking behaviors and importance of peer opinions decline during this period. Overall, self-regulation skills and judgment of risk behaviors improves (and continues through the early 20s) [13].
As a partial result of this problem-oriented frame, adolescents do not always know where they fit into society. They are not sure whether they are an adult, a child, or something in between [4]. The variability in life categories against their chronological age exacerbates this tendency. Surveys of American youth’s selfperceptions reveal that if asked if they are an adult, young people between ages 16 & 24 routinely select an equivocation response, saying “in some respects yes, and in some respects no” [2:471]. Arnett attributes this liminal identity to the instability of demographic markers, but he notes that youth themselves often attribute it to “individualistic qualities of character” [2:473]. A number of researchers [4, 5, 20, 39] have identified a set of three criteria that most accurately reflect a majority of American youth’s views on when it is that they become an adult. These are:
Accepting responsibility for one’s self; making independent decisions; and becoming financially independent.
However, the very things that impact an adolescent’s self-view of whether he or she is an adult can also affect ability to actually successfully transition into being an adult. Risky behaviors aside, the sometimes abrupt need to take responsibility for one’s actions and to make informed decisions about one’s person and life is difficult in a society in which young adults are often treated with derision, suspicion, or denial. For example, while many youth cited a full-time job as a criteria for being an adult, Arnett notes that an adolescent’s act of taking a job directly [26] after finishing high school is seen as an adulthood marker by the adolescent, yet viewed as a dead-end, and a poor life choice by older adults in authority. This contributes to a general social tendency to see that working young person as immature and not adult. According to this prevailing wisdom, the correct place for the adolescent to be after high school is in higher education. Given this, a youth who attempts to circumvent this by working immediately is seen to be lacking in the proper judgment expected of an adult.
2.2 ‘Betwixt and Between’ Also worth noting is that the phase of life known as adolescence is often confusingly conflated with the label ‘youth’ and is accompanied by a wide variety of possible age ranges [4, 19] depending on which label is desirable and for what purpose. Youth, as a period of life, is variably considered to be between 1319, 16-24, 16-30, or even 16-34. The explanations for the variance have to do with theories of psychosocial maturity [73] around identity formations, as well as employment patterns, and consumerist or marketing designations. Arnett [4] labels this period of life uncertainty ‘emerging adulthood’, characterized as a phase of life that is inherently contradictory and conflicted, owing to life in a society that provides mixed messages about the adolescent’s abilities and responsibilities [4, 5]. This phase of life is marked as a period of great change and high confusion [6, 7] in which there appear to be many possibilities but there are equally many uncertainties, more so than at any other period of human life.
3. Engaging With Adolescents In designing technologies for adults and children, qualitative methods are often leveraged to provide understanding of user needs, preferences, and contexts of technology use. Traditional qualitative research itself has a long and rich history of timehonored approaches, common quandaries, and well-defined processes of action. There is a mature and accepted body of data gathering methods literature that are generally well known and often-cited by those who do qualitative work (c.f. [12, 29, 40]). Although we briefly describe the mechanics of the methods, we largely turn attention to the problems with traditional qualitative methods when working with adolescents. This is because of the need to remember the differences between children, adolescents and adults. Researchers must be clear that design-oriented research with adolescents presents an additional package of
2.2.1 Adolescents as “problems” In addition to the vagaries of meaning around the label ‘adolescent’ or ‘youth’, there are a number of difficulties that are felt most acutely in the adolescent life period. To begin with, the regard for youth is often colored by a negative ‘problem frame’ [26], due to the adolescent tendency to experiment [17], which often leads them to engage in risky behaviors [5, 15, 19, 26], to question authority figures and structures, and to bend or break rules, regulations and laws. This period of life has been described historically by researchers and popular culture as one of ‘sturm and drang’ (storm and stress) and ‘raging hormones’[36].
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Psychological Association ethics guidelines [18], the Society for Adolescent Medicine Code of Research Ethics [38], as well as any specific guidelines provided by their institutions and applicable governing agencies.
possibilities and risks. These include understanding power dynamics between youth and their social groups and institutions; accurately capturing and reflecting cultural specificities; figuring out how to empower youth to participate; and resolving the paradoxes of research practice with youth, given they occupy a social space of being both child and adult, under law and custom.
No matter the specific regulations for a given research project, during the informed consent process, benefits should be wellarticulated to adolescent participants, in language with which they are familiar and within contexts and environments in which they are comfortable. A recommended practice is to have the teenager verbally explain the research protocol back to the researcher, in order to ensure that the risks, benefits, and procedures have been understood.
In the following sections, we discuss problems with respect to data collection techniques used for interaction design research and practice. We particularly focus issues surrounding consent and assent, and power imbalances. In turn, we suggest ways to mitigate issues and risk. We showcase two examples of design paradigms that may be useful when studying the needs and attitudes of adolescents.
3.1.2 Recruitment and Retention
3.1 Recruitment and Consent
Adolescent-focused research can suffer from a paradox of participation, as adolescents may be temperamental about their involvement in research, even if the potential benefits of research are personally high for them. Young adult participants may exhibit high interest at the outset of a research study, but may then let the research process drift by without actively committing or involving themselves, even if they have signed documents agreeing to do so [42]. This may be due to any combination of factors, including misunderstanding the time commitments, not feeling capable of providing adequate data to researchers, not feeling comfortable in the research environment or not agreeing in the possible benefits of the research outcomes. Researchers studying teenagers with chronic illnesses or other special healthcare needs may find their target audience even harder to reach, as these potential enrollees may reject participation if even the title of the study provides yet another reminder of how they are “different” from others around them [30, 32]. Careful attention is needed to present the study in ways that are acceptable to eligible adolescents.
3.1.1 Consent and Assent The age at which research participants are considered to be ‘adults’ varies not only by nation, but also by state/province, and across governmental bodies [2, 3, 45]. For instance, in the United States, depending on the federal agency involved, a participant may be considered adult at 16, 18, or 21 [2]. To add to the confusion, there is an ongoing debate in health research as to who is capable of providing informed consent to being part of a research study, if the study participant is an adolescent according to social convention but an adult according to law [38]. Because of the confusion and concern about research ethics with adolescents—along with the prevailing norms of casting youth as having insufficient cognitive skills necessary to articulate their experiences, lack of responsibility in decision making, and lack of trustworthiness in their answer (whether or not these assertions or true)—researchers often use adults as proxies for youth experience [7]. As a result, research may be informed by parent, teacher, or clinician views of what is true and right for the teenager, rather than actually consulting the teenager about his or her preferences, needs, and lived experiences. While streamlining research data collection, this approach silences the voices of adolescents.
Cooper Robbins et al. [37] investigated why Australian teenagers volunteer to join and continue participating in research studies, especially longitudinal ones. They identified the following factors associated with participation: parental encouragement, incentives, peer influence, curiosity about one’s self or the research process, to make new friends, and to contribute to a greater social good. Of particular interest is that their study revealed that while financial incentives can be attractive to eligible teenagers, so is appealing to altruism and positive social experiences gained through participation. An effective method they found for recruitment (in a study involving focus groups and taking blood/urine samples) was having existing participants recruit their friends to take part in the research [37]. On a more pragmatic note, providing reminders to participants, for instance by phone call or text message, has been shown to increase retention in research programs [32] .
Similarly, in clinic-based healthcare research, concerns about data privacy may also stymie the voices of youth. Leonard [4] suggests the frequent use of clinical settings as the site of data collection for qualitative research, while effective for controlling access to a patient’s personal health information and addressing other concerns of institutional ethics review committees, can silence the everyday lived experience of adolescent patients. Morrow and Richards [5] agree, saying that the cultural and contextual specificity of adolescent lives (particularly among those of minority groups) are often compromised or made invisible in clinical settings.
3.2 Power Imbalances
In line with the recommendations of the Society for Adolescent Medicine, we take the position that involving adolescents in research and design is often preferable to having adult proxies speak on their behalf [38]. In the words of McDonagh and Bateman [32], inclusion of adolescents in research can:
Adolescent research is rife with power imbalances between adults (e.g. researchers, parents, teachers) and teenagers. While peer or parental influence can improve recruitment and retention in studies, children and adolescents are particularly vulnerable to coercion to participate in studies, particularly by adult family members. As a female participant in Cooper Robbins et al.’s [37] focus group mentioned:
“promote positive youth development, fostering key skills of communication, planning, information gathering, problem solving, and critical analysis.”
“[I’m here cause] Mum told me to…she thought everyone ought to be here.” (p.1)
For guidance on the ethos and ethics of research with adolescent participants, turn to the NIH Policy And Guidelines On The Inclusion Of Children As Participants In Research Involving Human Subjects [2], the 1978 Belmont Report [1], the American
To prevent these situations from occurring, research ethics committees typically require assent from minors in addition to parental consent, yet researchers have noted that in practice,
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methods, adolescents, may not fully understand issues related to data confidentiality [32].
ascertaining whether participation is truly voluntary is not always simple; parents may place strong pressure on their children to be in a study [7, 37]. This issue is particularly salient for studies that involve participation of entire families [7], as a parent’s desire to be in a study may override a child’s objections.
If conducted in a setting near friends or family, the possibility of being overheard in a private conversation may also reduce the enthusiasm and range of responses [7]. For structured interviews, use of computer-assisted self-interviewing may be helpful in overcoming this challenge. With this technique, the participant reads interview questions or listens over headphones to questions, then provides an answer discreetly by clicking, pointing, or typing it; this technique can work especially well with low-literacy populations [36]. For semi- and unstructured interviews, letting the adolescent choose the location for the interview can increase his or her comfort with study participation [7].
In addition to potential coercion from peers and parents, another issue to consider is authority over space. Keep in mind that teenagers are not always the “authority” over spaces in their life, such as shared areas of a home. For instance, Bassett et al reported on their experiences interviewing teens in their homes, and having siblings, parents, and other family members interrupting or eavesdropping on the teenagers—or at least contributing to an atmosphere that encourages reticence and silence. Adolescents may not feel comfortable—or may not be successful—at keeping other family members out of the interview space; thus, it can be helpful for the interviewer to use his or her “power” to ask for privacy [7]. Alternatively, if the research involves getting perspectives from the family, it can be useful to bring multiple interviewers to the home to conduct concurrent interviews; we have successfully used this technique in our own research which involved asking people to speak about other family members or discuss sensitive issues [35]. Yet another way to bring “power” back to the teen is to allow him or her to pick the time, date, and location of the interview [30].
Subpar interviews, however, may not just be the result of power imbalance and privacy concerns—they may also be due to developmental issues. Although open-ended questions are a mainstay of qualitative research, these types of questions are difficult for younger adolescents to comprehend and articulate an answer; early adolescence is a stage in which the ability to reason about hypothetical or future situations, or views different from one’s own emerge [34] . Without developing these cognitive abilities, future- and other-oriented questions will be challenging to answer. Mack et al recommend that for each open-ended question used during an interview, the researchers should also have a series of more concrete, specific follow-up prompts that are more accessible to adolescents not yet at the developmental stage to answer open-ended questions [30]. For example, a question such as “Tell me what it’s like to live in your neighborhood” could be rephrased, “How is your neighborhood same or different from your friends?” More examples can be found in [30]
Finally, when conducting research and design with adolescents, there are inevitably power imbalances between the researcher and the researched. Even the most empathetic and well-intentioned adults can be viewed as authority figures, particularly for adolescents from certain cultural backgrounds [7]. The view of the researcher-as-authority may lead to apathy and avoidance [41], silence and obfuscation [7] or discomfort [22]. Techniques to build rapport and cultivate a comfortable environment are essential to overcome this issue. Possible rapport-building techniques include use of casual introductions rather than reading from a formal script [7], dressing informally [14], referring to popular culture or well-known rules/regulations as topics of discussion, providing assurances that there are no wrong or right answers that the researcher is seeking [21], reminding the teen of the importance of his/her opinion [32], and appearing to have the “least-adult role” in a given setting [31]. Another technique that can reduce the view of adult-as-authority is to have older teenagers serve as interviewers/moderators during data collection sessions [7].
3.3.2 Focus Groups Focus group are a staple of interaction design and for a number of contexts, have been shown to work well with adolescent participants. In particular, this technique allows for peer support (‘safety in numbers’) and social interaction, both of which are reportedly important to adolescent participants [22, 32, 37]. Although, typically, it is recommended to limit child-oriented focus groups to a size of five to eight participants, Hyde et al. [25] found that having a group of up to twelve participants was acceptable in their study of teen sexual health. In fact, Hyde et al. noted the larger groups were more “relaxed” and had the same level of engagement by all of the participants as in smaller groups. There was a downside, however. The larger groups had more cross-talk, making data transcription more difficult [25]. When conducting focus groups with teenagers, we recommend no more than a two-year age difference between participants. When topics are of a sensitive nature, focus groups should be constructed according to single gender or to self-designated sexuality designations. If possible, groups of teenagers who already know one another in a different context can build rapport; groups who are unfamiliar may need additional time to become comfortable enough to state their opinions in the presence of others [23].
3.3 Data Collection Techniques In this section, we outline the opportunities and challenges of common data collection techniques used for interaction design. Given the limited focus on the special needs of adolescents within the interaction design community, we draw upon work from the medical and behavioral sciences, which are disciplines with a long history of including adolescents as research participants.
3.3.1 Interviews A typical complaint of adolescent-focused researchers is that participants are either unable or unwilling to articulate their viewpoints during one-on-one interviews [7, 32]. In some cases, interviews can devolve to a series of questions being answered only with the phrases “yes,” “no,” and “I don’t know.” This reticence in participation may be for a number of reasons. The adolescent may not feel comfortable with the adult for whatever reason (e.g. concerns that information will be disclosed beyond the research project, or the adult is seen as a judgmental authority figure). As people with limited exposure to research ethics and
In addition to providing peer support, there is another unexpected benefit to using the focus group as a data collection technique in adolescent research: the teenaged focus group participants have some privileges and powers that the adult moderators do not. Focus group participants, by virtue of having insider knowledge about their peers, as well as similar ‘authority’ status, are often able to challenge the responses of their peers if authenticity of response is suspect [25].
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Even if peers do not explicitly challenge a participant during the course of a focus group, researchers can perform additional checks on validity by offering an individual questionnaire at the end of the session inquiring about the honesty of peer answers. Hyde et al. [25] recommend administering the following question using Likert scale responses: i.e.:
studied [7], through the use of techniques and tools already familiar to them and part of their existing daily practices.
3.3.4 Video collage Finally, as digital recording technologies become cheaper, and more readily accessible, we have devised a technique that is especially promising for research with teenagers. Called mobile video collage, it is intended to be a data gathering and designoriented approach for interaction design with adolescents. It is intended to bridge the subjectivity gap between researcher and participants, and is designed to reduce or eliminate the presence of a researcher in the adolescent participant’s domestic environment. Through this approach, adolescents become co-producers of the data collected about them as part of requirements gathering processes in interaction design.
“In my view, what the boys/girls in this focus group told the researchers during this focus group was (please circle): mostly true, true to some extent, not true at all.”
3.3.3 Observation and Videography Observational ethnographic studies can provide insight into adolescent daily life in ways that provide additional credibility to self-reports from interviews or focus groups, and have been shown to be especially valuable in studying peer networks [9]. However, there can be both logistical and ethical issues with longterm direct observation in the home by ethnographers. Despite these challenge to observation-based work, we believe that being able to understand what goes on in the everyday lives of adolescents is still a necessary step towards interaction design that meets user needs and preferences. In cases where it is not feasible or possible to have direct access to observations in adolescents’ domestic environments, we have been experimenting with the use of video ethnography as an experiential research technique for participatory interaction design.
As a data gathering method, mobile video collage uses inexpensive media capture and editing tools on mobile phones. This method adopts a media creation and production style that is familiar to most teens: the idea of a mashup. A mashup is a blend of a variety of digital media content, including photographs, texts, music, tweets, journal entries and video clips. Over a defined period of usually one to three weeks, participants are asked to create a steady stream of media content about their lives, in both a scheduled routine and a spontaneous fashion. Akin to a kind of reality television or web show of their lives, this media production activity is directed towards providing data on a given topic of concern to both the teen and to ourselves as researchers.
Videography is a data gathering method in which participants use mobile video recording tools to record aspects of their everyday life as a primary data collection vehicle. Videography provides alternative ways for patients to reflect aspects of their lives back to researchers. Engeström et al. [16] suggest that when used for health-related research, videography supports the “continuity of care” that is at the heart of obstacles to managing health and chronic conditions, because of the way it makes the otherwise invisible aspects of domestic healthcare support and maintenance come alive for collaboration and knowledge sharing. Adolescents respond particularly well to videography as a participatory research tool [22]. Video-enabled data gathering methods are a way of capturing patient life in situ and addressing the “gaps in the gaze” of the clinic [21]. As a data gathering tool, videography makes visible that which might otherwise be invisible or obscured if transformed into words [22,52,54]. The use of video as a datagathering tool breaks down the power dynamic between researcher and the research subject, and it disrupts the sense of being a lab rat in research maze [32]. Although studies using participant-created video may require additional overhead, around training and facilities for editing and storing films, the benefits appear to exceed the costs. This is particularly true when research is being done in ‘institutional’ settings such as health clinics.
In our own research, we are using this technique in support of the design of a mobile application for adolescents with special health care needs who are struggling with chronic disease selfmanagement. Using the video collage technique, adolescents are asked to take 5-10 photos daily of events, environments and objects in their lives that relate to their health and to their preoccupations about their life transitions (between pediatric and adult care; or between living at home and going away to college). Each evening, they are encouraged to record a short video of 3-5 minutes, around a series of prompts provided to them in advance. They have the opportunity to sends texts to the research project’s special text gathering line. They also are able to share snippets of music that influenced them that day. The content create by each participant is then reviewed and amalgamated by researchers into a series of design-oriented themes which are vetted by the participants. Together with the researchers, the participants create a video collage that reflects their life experiences, beliefs, values and influences around their health and their transition experiences. The video collages are used in subsequent participatory design sessions, and can be adapted for use in both conceptual or scenario-based design approaches.
In terms of conducting interaction design with adolescents, videography as a form of data gathering empowers youth to participate in the process by giving them tools to decide for themselves what part of their experience is relevant for research and by giving them a proportionally stronger voice in the results of data gathering. Given the way that photographic, video and audio tools are already a common and defining feature of adolescent life [44,88], gathering data using videography takes a familiar activity and mobilizes it for research purposes towards which the youth themselves can understand and to which they can relate. Participant-created videography can collapse barriers of privilege by placing the knowledge production activities of traditional data gathering into the hands of those that are being
4. CONCLUSIONS Comprising one-fifth of the world’s population, adolescents represent an important but understudied group in interaction design. Adolescence is a period marked by rapid physical, cognitive, social, and emotional changes; these changes influence how and in what ways research can be done. In this paper, we have provided insight into the changes that occur during adolescence, and how they affect the design of qualitative research projects. We described specific challenges with respect to research recruiting, consent, and ongoing participation with youth populations. We discussed videography as a way to overcome some of the issues of researching adolescents everyday lives. We also presented an overview of video collage, a novel
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[7] Bassett, R., Beagan, B. L., Ristovski-Slijepcevic, S. and Chapman, G. E. Tough Teens The Methodological Challenges of Interviewing Teenagers as Research Participants. Journal of Adolescent Research, 23, 2: 2008, 119-131.
approach to participatory design devised specifically for adolescent populations. We conclude this paper with a call for additional research on interaction design research methods for adolescents. As we have discussed, adolescents occupy a vulnerable state, poised midway between childhood and adulthood. They occupy this tenuous hybrid state under law and custom. Yet, as a population, adolescents are understudied, poorly understood, and weakly represented in interaction design research, particularly within data gathering methods and design approaches. Often, teenagers are lumped in as a kind of category of older child, yet the needs, values, environments and concerns of teens are often markedly different. Thus, we avow that just as advances become better known about the physical and cognitive changes during adolescence, so too should interaction design methods evolve and adapt to the new knowledge.
[8] Brown, B. B. Moving forward with research on adolescence: Some reflections on the state of JRA and the state of the field. Journal of Research on Adolescence, 15, 4: 2005, 657673. [9] Burton, L. M., Garrett‐Peters, R. and Eaton, S. C. More Than Good Quotations. Handbook of Adolescent Psychology2009. [10] Caronia, L. and Caron, A. H. Television Culture and Media Socialization across Countries: Theoretical Issues and Methodological Approaches. International Handbook of Children, Media and Culture2008, 371.
This is not only a North American or even a Western concern. An area of research that may be of particular salience in coming years is in adolescent experiences in developing countries. Population projections from UNICEF suggest that in the coming decades, the bulk of the world’s adolescent population will be located in developing nations struggling with poverty, inequity, and gender discrimination [45]. This calls for additional research examining whether what is known about research and design with adolescents fits within the context of these differing contexts. Whether through video collage methods or other approaches not yet created, it is imperative that the field of interaction design begins to give the adolescent population greater attention. The field must adapt and find new ways to respect and reflect the nuances, values and experiences of adolescent life within technological design.
[11] Dahl, R. E. Adolescent brain development: a period of vulnerabilities and opportunities. Keynote address. Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, 1021, 1: 2004, 1-22.
5. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
[15] Dryfoos, J. G. Adolescents at risk: Prevalence and prevention. Oxford University Press, USA, 1991.
[12] Denzin, N. K. and Lincoln, Y. S. Handbook of qualitative research. Sage Publications, Inc, 1994. [13] Dorn, L. D., Dahl, R. E., Woodward, H. R. and Biro, F. Defining the boundaries of early adolescence: A user's guide to assessing pubertal status and pubertal timing in research with adolescents. Applied Developmental Science, 10, 1: 2006, 30. [14] Druin, A. The role of children in the design of new technology. Behaviour and Information Technology, 21, 1: 2002, 1-25.
We thank the Penn State Center for Health Care Delivery Systems, Nokia Corporation, and the Tronzo Endowment at Pennsylvania State University for providing financial support for this work. We also thank our collaborators at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia for insightful discussions on research with adolescents.
[16] Engeström, Y., Engeström, R. and Kerosuo, H. The discursive construction of collaborative care. Applied Linguistics, 24, 3: 2003, 286-315. [17] Erikson, E. H. Identity: Youth and crisis. WW Norton & Company, 1994.
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