Designing the 'record' button: using children's understanding of icons to inform the design of a musical interface

  • Authors:
  • Lorna McKnight;Janet C. Read

  • Affiliations:
  • University of Central Lancashire, Preston, UK;University of Central Lancashire, Preston, UK

  • Venue:
  • Proceedings of the 8th International Conference on Interaction Design and Children
  • Year:
  • 2009

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Abstract

While standard icons often exist for common tasks, it can be difficult to design meaningful icons for non-standard tasks. Following a desire to build a music application that does not rely on text-based instructions, this paper explores suitable iconic representations for a 'record music' function on a mobile device. A study was carried out with primary school children (aged 8--10) to explore their current understanding of icons and elicit their requirements. It was seen that they were familiar with common icons, but that audio recording remains a difficult concept to represent through icons alone.