Living labs: driving innovation through civic involvement

ABSTRACT

In this paper we describe our approach of involving children and young people in processes of innovation using the concept of "living labs". For this purpose we use construction kits made for children and young people for high-fidelity prototyping. We argue that design with children can be extended from educational intentions towards participation in innovation processes and towards civic engagement. As a showcase we demonstrate novel products children invented and created during a design session in the field of "Smart Textiles".

REFERENCES

• 1: Boronowsky, M., Herzog, O., Knackfuß P., and Lawo, M. Wearable Computing and Living Labs - Synergy at Work. eChallenge (2006)
• 2: Medienpädagogischer Forschungsverbund Südwest. Jim Studie 2007 (2007)
• 3: Jenkins, H., Participatory Culture: Media Education for the 21st Century. White Paper (2006)
• 4: Allison Druin, Cooperative inquiry: developing new technologies for children with children, Proceedings of the SIGCHI conference on Human factors in computing systems: the CHI is the limit, p.592-599, May 15-20, 1999, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States [doi>10.1145/302979.303166]
• 5: Buechley, L. A construction kit for electronic textiles. Proc. IEEE International Symposium on Wearable Computers (ISCW) (2006)
• 6: Matilla, H. Intelligent Textiles and Clothing. Woodhead Publishing (2006)
• 7: Ohmatex. White paper on smart textiles - market overview. www.ohmatex.dk. Last visit 02.2008 (2007)
• 8: Reichel, M. EduWear: Ein Construction Kit für Smarte Textilien und Wearable Computing. Proc. Informatik trifft Logistik. 37. Jahrestagung der GI (2007)

INDEX TERMS

Primary Classification:
  H. Information Systems
  H.5 INFORMATION INTERFACES AND PRESENTATION (I.7)
      H.5.2 User Interfaces (D.2.2, H.1.2, I.3.6)
          Subjects: User-centered design

Keywords:
construction kits, participatory design, smart textiles