Child-Centered Evaluation: Broadening the Child/Designer Dyad

Abstract

Some settings challenge a literal interpretation of user-centered design orthodoxy; that design is best donefora user, by designingwiththat user. We explore the value that a copresent proxy and interpreter can bring to certainhard-to-reachordifficult-to-interpretsituations; in this case the evaluation of educational software intendedto be usedby children. We discuss the effect that introducing a teacher had on the results of the evaluation and conclude that adding an expert-based component to evaluations increased its diagnostic power.