Friendly Fox Designs
Workingwithchildren
Some say never work with children (and animals), but we can't think of anything more rewarding!
Ways we work with children:
-
Co-designing: We offer sessions with a range of novel and enjoyable methods to get young peoples ideas and needs for a design. This can be for a trail, which might also include kids art or your own design project. Other stakeholders can join in too. Learn more
-
Educational Workshops: Children are fascinated by digital games, so creating their own can be exciting. We can provide teaching packs and support to implementing sessions that enhance any teaching programme. Learn more
Game design workshops
We have had positive feedback from young people and educational suppliers about our design workshops. Sessions for children to design their own characters and games can enhance learning around nature, IT and creativity. One of our key partners is Develop Outdoors a CIC based in East Sussex. Kids are able to develop valuable skills in IT and creativity, besides increasing their attachment to natural spaces. Children with special needs can ofter particularly benefit from the motivational approach to designing that can suit any ability and boost confidence.
We work with local schools or organisations benefitting children, supplying teaching packs and training. Sessions can emphasise artistic and storytelling skills or technical aspects of compiling games.
CO-Designing
Some designers think they know what makes a game appealing to children. However, Druin, (1999) points out: “Children have their own likes, dislikes, curiosities and needs that are not the same as adults, parents or teachers.” It can be a costly mistake to make assumptions about what will make a product attractive to young people.
We believe in working with children at an early stage of a process and use methods to understand practical and emotional needs. Kids are also full of great ideas and we usually include their creations in a trail.
Characters
and stories
Children can be effective and creative partners in a design process *. Some children find it difficult or embarrassing to articulate emotional factors, such as fear or sensitivities that could impact on the success of a design. Using characters that they create as an agent for discussion allows the child to express themselves more candidly through a story.
*(Druin, 1999; Garzotto, 2008; Garzotto, 2011; Obrist, 2011)
Discover
Say Do Make Think
To research the needs of children effectively, we use a framework of methods, called ‘Say, Do, Make (Think) *
It is based on fundamental definitions of human activity and allows information to viewed from a range of perspectives. See example below
* Sanders, Stappers (2008) and Cain (1998)
say
What do children say ?
Methods like surveys, interviews and focus groups are traditional methods useful to establish factual information.
do
Observing what children do, through design ethnography allows us to see into the world of the child and to understand their natural behaviour.
make (think!)
We have developed our own creative co-design methods that work well with children's skillsets and allow us to understand their latent and emotional needs.The CAS system can be very effective
BUGS&KIDS
An example of ‘Say, Do, Make’ in action when designing nature games, is children's attitude to 'bugs'.
Online surveys (Say) showed that a reason children avoid the countryside was bugs. However, in observations (Do) the children were fascinated, daring each other towards them. During the co-design of their own games (Make), they told stories where their fear of these 'scary' creatures was overcome. According to psychologists a key emotional need is to overcome childhood fears.
Without the framework, bugs may have been excluded from games, but children love to hate them!
WHY use technology?
Don't children play outdoors anyway?
There are barriers to accessing green spaces for many people in society. Issues can range from lack of awareness of its benefits, distance, fear of encountering creatures or strangers, to a perception of nature being simply boring. Evidence also shows that children from disadvantaged and urban areas are more likely to be impacted.
Most families and older children own a mobile phone and our research showed that use of technology helps to encourage reluctant young people to engage with activities.