Some reflections on designing construction kits for kids

  • Authors:

  • Mitchel Resnick;Brian Silverman

  • Affiliations:

  • MIT Media Lab, Cambridge, MA;Playful Invention Company, Montreal, Canada

  • Venue:
  • Proceedings of the 2005 conference on Interaction design and children
  • Year:
  • 2005

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Abstract

In this paper, we present ten guiding principles for designing construction kits for kids, informed by our experiences over the past two decades:* Design for Designers* Low Floor and Wide Walls* Make Powerful Ideas Salient -- Not Forced* Support Many Paths, Many Styles* Make it as Simple as Possible -- and Maybe Even Simpler* Choose Black Boxes Carefully* A Little Bit of Programming Goes a Long Way* Give People What They Want -- Not What They Ask For* Invent Things That You Would Want to Use Yourself* Iterate, Iterate -- then Iterate AgainWhile these principles apply especially to the development of construction kits, we believe that they could be useful for everyone who designs new technologies for kids.