Situating Youth as Interaction Co-Designers of an Interactive Mural

Paper Title

Situating Youth as Interaction Co-Designers of an Interactive Mural

Publication Info

• Topic area: Youth interaction design in STEAM education through large-scale collaborative projects.
• Keywords: Interaction design, STEAM education, interactive murals, youth co-design, culturally responsive learning, capacitive touch sensors, sound synthesis, participatory design, HCI, community-based art.

Background and Problem

• Problem / challenge: Interaction Design (IxD) has received limited attention in STEAM education compared to programming and electronics. Most STEAM activities focus on individual or small-scale projects, often neglecting high-level design skills and user interaction considerations.
• Significance: IxD is critical for understanding and designing the interplay between people and technology. Engaging youth in IxD can foster creativity, collaboration, and a deeper understanding of high-level design principles, which are essential for future technology development.
• Motivation and related work: Prior research has explored youth co-design in areas like video games and health technology but often lacks significant duration or complexity. Interactive murals have been used in culturally responsive learning but primarily to teach programming and electronics. This paper builds on these traditions by situating youth as full co-designers of a large-scale interactive mural, emphasizing IxD principles.

Solution

• Proposed approach: The PAHTIA project, a 45 x 9 ft interactive mural co-designed by youth, integrates IxD principles with culturally responsive STEAM education. The mural uses capacitive touch sensors and sound synthesis to create interactive soundscapes.
• Novelty:
  1. Engaging youth as full co-designers in a large-scale, real-world IxD project.
  2. Introducing IxD principles (constraints, affordances, feedback, mental models) as a focus in STEAM education.
  3. Combining artistic and technical design in a culturally significant context.
  4. Demonstrating how interactive murals can serve as platforms for collaborative and community-based IxD learning.
• Procedure and key techniques:
  1. A 5-week summer workshop (125 hours) with five youth participants aged 11–15.
  2. Activities included conceptual and visual design, interaction design, electrical design, and mural construction.
  3. Students learned IxD principles through hands-on activities, such as designing touch sensors, mapping sounds, and conducting user studies.
  4. The mural, installed at the National Hispanic Cultural Center, integrates cultural motifs and interactive elements like capacitive sensors and real-time sound synthesis.

Results

• Concrete findings:
  • Students developed significant expertise in IxD, understanding principles like affordances, feedback, and mental models.
  • They designed interactions that considered user experiences, such as mapping visual elements to sounds and ensuring accessibility for users of all heights.
  • The mural successfully engaged museum visitors, with attendees noting its interactivity and cultural relevance.
• Advantage over baselines:
  • Unlike traditional STEAM activities, this project emphasized high-level design skills and collaborative, large-scale work.
  • Students gained experience in designing for real-world audiences and conducting user studies, which are rarely included in typical STEAM curricula.
• Experiments / evaluation:
  • Data collection included field notes, student reflections, questionnaires, interviews, and feedback from museum visitors.
  • Students conducted user studies during the mural’s showcase, analyzing how attendees interacted with the piece.
  • Thematic coding revealed students’ understanding of IxD principles and their ability to analyze user experiences.
• Limitations and future work:
  • Limited sample size (5 students) and short duration (5 weeks).
  • Future work could involve iterative design cycles, deeper user studies, and collaborations with performers (e.g., musicians or dancers).
  • Sustainability and long-term maintenance of the mural could be explored.

Summary

This paper presents the PAHTIA project, where five youth co-designed a large-scale interactive mural, integrating IxD principles with culturally responsive STEAM education. The project demonstrated that youth can develop significant expertise in IxD through collaborative, real-world design activities. Students learned to apply concepts like affordances, feedback, and mental models while creating a permanent public artwork. The mural’s success highlights the potential of interactive murals as platforms for IxD learning, emphasizing creativity, cultural relevance, and community engagement. Future work could expand on iterative design, interdisciplinary collaborations, and sustainability.