Designing for Digital Playing Out

Abstract

We report on a design-led study in the UK that aimed to understand barriers to children (aged 5 to 14 years) 'playing out' in their neighbourhood and explore the potential of the Internet of Things (IoT) for supporting children's free play that extends outdoors. The study forms a design ethnography, combining observational fieldwork with design prototyping and co-creative activities across four linked workshops, where we used BBC micro:bit devices to co-create new IoT designs with the participating children. Our collective account contributes new insights about the physical and interactive features of micro:bits that shaped play, gameplay, and social interaction in the workshops, illuminating an emerging design space for supporting 'digital playing out' that is grounded in empirical instances. We highlight opportunities for designing for digital playing out in ways that promote social negotiation, supports varying participation, allows for integrating cultural influences, and accounts for the weaving together of placemaking and play.

Engaging Children to Co-create Outdoor Play Activities for Place-making

“…The first identified research gap is about relevant place-making processes for children. Outdoor play is proposed as a meaningful place-making activity for children [31,32,48]. Physical exercise benefits children's development [31,32], and also supports children's relationships with their neighbourhood [31,43].…”

“…Physical exercise benefits children's development [31,32], and also supports children's relationships with their neighbourhood [31,43]. Outdoor play enables children to explore their environment and make active use of it [20,31], to construct meaning and identity [9], and to enable children to take ownership of their environment [48]. It is supported most in open-ended play: a type of play in which there are no fixed rules and children keep on (re)inventing games and play behaviour [6].…”

“…Involving children in decision-making encourages them to take ownership of their environment [36], become more active and engaged in their neighbourhood [26], with increasing trust towards municipal actors [35,40], enabling them to feel more at home in their local community [38]. It is thus important for children to connect with their direct living environment, to acquire a sense of belonging [31,48] and civic agency [37].…”

“…This paper builds on the limited amount of promising research (e.g. [10,29,36,48]) with the same goal to explore which PD methods and activities are most appropriate when working with children. Researchers indeed claim that PD methods can increase sense of place, but it is not clear how this exactly happens and which elements of the PD process contribute to this.…”

Play Poles

“…Throughout this enquiry we have learnt about and responded to a culture of play at the community centre that is supported by two experienced play leaders whose voices are salient throughout this pictorial account. Over the period of engagement, we have spent time helping with activities, held workshops focused on learning about the children's outdoor play and introduced off-the-shelf programmable IoT devices [7].…”