Customizing Developmentally Situated Design (DSD) Cards: Informing Designers about Preschoolers’ Spatial Learning

To date, developmental needs and abilities of children under 4 years old have been insufficiently taken into account at the early stages of technology design. Bekker and Antle [6] created developmentally situated design (DSD) cards as a design tool to inform children’s technology designers about children’s development starting from 5 years of age. In this paper, we describe how we customized DSD cards for a specific developmental skill (i.e., spatial learning) of children between 2- and 4-year-olds for tangible interaction design. The cards were evaluated after a user study in which 19 participants from different backgrounds used the cards in three design workshops. Our analysis of observational notes and online survey identify and discuss how specific card features support or limit use by our participants. We draw on our findings to set forth design considerations and possible refinements that make age specific knowledge about very young children’s spatial learning to inform technologies based on tangible interaction.