Primed Design Activities: Scaffolding Young Designers During Ideation

Often, when designing new and novel technologies with users, the initial envisioning and concept generation stage is carried out exclusively by the research team. Within this paper three barriers are identified which make it challenging to include users within this early design activity: knowledge gap, user journey, and complex requirements. These three barriers are often exacerbated when working with young people (children and teenagers). This paper explores a design technique (Primed Design Activities) which is intended to help lower these barriers and enable young people to be more effectively involved in early envisioning and concept generation stages. The technique bases the designs around a scenario of use and collects context appropriate screen designs. Two studies in which designs created by young people are analysed in order to better understand the Primed Design Activity approach and findings are discussed.