Describes the process undertaken by a design team comprising both elementary school students and researchers to design a Web portal intended for use by children. The approach adopted by the team was based upon several design theories related to usability studies: contextual inquiry, participatory design, and cooperative inquiry. Presents…

Illustrates how each of these principles may guide decisions about Web-based design for young children consistent with developmentally appropriate practice: (1) simple, clean and concrete design; (2) adult guidance; (3) progressive and individualized; (4) relevant to children; (5) integrated activities; (6) active and enjoyable; and (7)…

Using a participatory approach, 11 middle school children created paper prototypes for Web search engines. The prototypes were analyzed in relation to content-related spaces, specific spaces, general spaces, instruction spaces, and other spaces. Children's comments about the purposes of the interfaces were analyzed in terms of functionality and…

This study examined whether children communicate themselves via visual images and whether adults can better understand children by viewing images they use to express themselves. An extracurricular course was designed to help students become familiar with computers and the Internet; objectives included creating a word document, sending and reading…