The presentation given at CHI'13 conference in Paris

1. Joanna Kwiatkowska Czestochowa University of Technology
Agnieszka Szóstek School of Form
Olga Górnicka University of Social Sciences and Humanities
The needs of early school children and their
parents with respect to the design of mobile
service offers
Case Study

2. 2
• 23% of children age 7-9 and 70% of European children age
12-13 owns mobile phone.Eurobarometer
The main reasons of buying children mobile phone:
• to increase their safety especially when a child is leaving for
a longer period of time,
• to facilitate the organization of their daily schedules.
The Australian Mobile Telecommunication Association
Early school children and mobile services

3. The facts from child developmend process
• at this age children tend to play in gender specific groups,
• they are forming their hobbies and subject specific interest,
• they are developing their learning strategies and the ability
to study independently,
• for the first time they become a part of a social group and
learn how to form friendships, - they become more and
more independent from their parents.
Piaget

4. 4
The facts concerning children attitude towards technology
• games and entertainment are important for children
development,
• it is important to ensure the appropriateness between
children age and their changing needs for technology,
• there are significant differences in use of technology among
children until ages 13 to 15, communication is at this age
more crucial for girls than boys.
Markopoulos, Read, MacFarlan, Hoysniemi

5. 5
Project goals
• identification of the requirements of parents pertaining the
mobile needs of their children,
• comparison of the mobile needs of children age 7-8 with
those age 9-10,
• comparison of the mobile needs of boys and girls for the
aforementioned age groups.

6. 6
Approach
Workshops Participants
Series 1
Boys age 7 – 8
4 participants
Girls age 7 – 8
5 participants
Parents
9 participants
Series 2
Boys age 9 – 10
6 participants
Girls age 9 – 10
6 participants
Parents
12 participants

7. 7
Session with children
• a discussion about mobile phones, mobile offers and mobile
providers,
• a comparison of the feature phone and smartphone,
• a discussion of the current use of mobile phones by
children,
• drawing and describing the ideal mobile phone,
• drawing and describing their favourite games and media
they would like to own and share with other children,
• drawing a network of people children communicate with,
• a discussion about and ideal mobile phone and an
accompanying mobile service offer.

8. Boys, 7-8 years old

9. Example of drawings of ideal phones.

10. Example of drawings of communication networks.

11. Session with parents
• description of each child and its mobile use,
• selection of five most important criteria for a mobile offer for
a child (the list of 21 criteria, parents were also asked to
add their own criteria),
• drawing a network of the child’s contacts,
• creating an ideal mobile offer for children,
• discussing scenarios - phone related needs of children in
case of an emergency.

12. Data analysis
• data transcription to post-it notes,
• affinity diagram technique,
• conventional content analysis.
Three category of needs:
• safety (parents),
• entertainment (younger boys),
• communication (older girls).

13. 13
Mobile needs of children age 7-8
• girls: communication with family and 2-3 girl friends; games
already installed on their phones.
• boys: phone as a mobile game console, they were able to
take advantage of Internet functionality to download new
games.
• all children: personalisation of the visual appearance of the
hardware (stickers, covers, etc.) and software (wall-papers,
photos of personal contacts); camera and music player.

14. 14
Mobile needs of children age 9-10
• girls: social identity build with items like photos, music and
self-recorded video; SMS functionality, Internet - discovered
potential.
• boys: social identity is derived from a possession of high-
tech apparatus; communication - phone calls; Internet -
downloading music, games and videos.
• all children: need for localisation functionality of their
phones (important element of social identity).

15. 15
Design implications: safety I
The use of the mobile phone by the child - elements
of the mobile service offer:
• the possibility to block numbers,
• website with rankings of safe games, music and video,
• geo-location of child’s phone of the parents,
• reports describing the usage of child’s phone,
• possibility to add money to child’s phone from the parent’s
phone.

16. 16
Design implications: safety II
Needs concerning emergency situations - elements
of the service mobile offer:
• charge-free calls to parents,
• emergency numbers accessible on the main screen,
• a report about making an emergency call form child’s phone
sent to the parents,
• sending automatic indication to the emergency line that a
child is calling,
• a button to call for help when a child is in danger.

17. 17
Design implications: entertainment
Elements of the service mobile offer:
• an Internet package,
• a preloaded package of games selected according to the
age and the gender of a child,
• access to quizzes helping children in a playful manner to
learn,
• gender-specific accessories for the phone such as stickers,
covers, wall-papers, widgets, etc.,
• a mobile website with games and other content dedicated
for children,
• an application to record child’s voice and play it back,
• virtual gadgets such as collection cards to be exchanged
among children.

18. 18
Design implications: communication
Elements of the service mobile offer:
• charge-free calls to the selected numbers,
• a possibility to dynamically increase the limits for the
Internet and SMSs according to the child changing needs,
• setting up the reminders on the parent phone to add money
to the child account,
• providing reports enabling the parents to control child
expenditure.

19. 19
Summary
• there are differences regarding mobile service offers needs
between children age 7-8 and age 9-10 and also between
girls and boys,
• individual inquiries - parents with their children were
constructing mobile services offers that fulfilled their
expectations and needs: 94 couples (February 2013),
• construction of the mobile service offer for children age 7-8.