Education, Algorithms & Opportunities for Kids Media to Create Third Spaces for Learning Recently, Dubit and the Children’s Media Foundation undertook research to discover young people’s views on their lives and the world- a youth “State of the Nation”. More than 500 twelve to fifteen-year-olds from across the UK shared views in a two-stage methodology that included 32 one-to-one interviews with young people…

Play and storytelling are important aspects of children’s learning about serious issues in health and medicine — Typically, design for child health is made by adults and the resulting designs are top heavy on the serious nature of medical information. …

The Metaverse is coming, and it’s far more than a buzzword for kids and teens. If you’re not yet familiar with the term, metaverse refers to global, always-on virtual spaces that are “omni-experiential” (i.e., …

What does it mean to be inclusive when working with kids in research? ‘Nothing About Us Without Us’ is the title of a chapter in Costanza-Chock’s (2020) book ‘Design Justice’. The chapter starts by outlining the controversy that followed a Google employee sharing a memo called ‘echo chamber’ that suggested…

Turning surveys into experiences to provide engaging means for children to share their opinions The UN Rights of the Child (1989) stipulates that children must be given a voice in issues that affect them. Throughout my research and design work for/with children I have always sought to find better ways…

And why it might be worth the pain of pursuing all the design challenges In my work in both academia and the play industry I spend a lot of time exploring what makes a good play experience. From considering the best methods for observing and understanding play to how it…

Using design-based workshops to understand children’s sleep knowledge Dr Dylan Yamada-Rice, Acting Head of Information Experience Design, Royal College of Art This blog post reflects on sleep workshops that myself and Amy Clark undertook on behalf of Dubit in order to inform a new play about sleep called Sweet Dreams…

What has culture and history got to do with VR development? Here I discuss some initial ideas on the topic… Kress (2003) describes how communication practices arise from changes in technology, social and cultural practices. Geertz (1973) defines culture as: ‘the fabric of meaning in terms of which human beings…

How do modes, materials and performance affect the design of a virtual reality experience? Here I review some location-based VR experiences from Japan in relation to these three areas to offer some insight for future development. The VR Park Shibuya is an arcade hosting location-based VR experiences. These are site…