Designing for Themselves: Investigating the Capability of Children with ASD to Become Effective Design Partners

Background: Children with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) are seldom involved in the design of products and services developed for their use. This may be due to communication difficulties or the extra support required to enable participation. However, the nature and variability of the ASD profile (incorporating relative strengths and weaknesses) suggests that generic design principles underpinning the development of products and services may not be extendable to an ASD population. An overall research question concerns whether participatory design (PD), a method of actively involving end users in the design process, could provide the means to achieve this goal.

Objectives: The study aims to assess the utility of PD for use by this population, and involves: (1) investigating whether children with ASD are able to generate their own design ideas for a maths-based computer game, and; (2) determining whether they can undertake activities associated with existing PD techniques without modification.

Methods: Twenty high-functioning children with ASD (18 boys, 2 girls), aged 11-15 years used one of two sets of design activities: one set based on an existing PD method for children, Cooperative Inquiry (CI) (Druin, 1999), and the other specifically developed for children with ASD called IDEAS. The children were matched on age, sex and verbal IQ across the two methods and originated from three specialist ASD schools. A mixture of children from each of the schools undertook one design session using either the CI-based or IDEAS method. Each child undertook the session on their own and was provided with a selection of art materials with which to draw out their design for a computer-based mathematics game. Children who struggled to generate their own designs using IDEAS were given pre-prepared templates that they could then modify or add to. Children using CI were not given any additional support.

Results: Seventeen children were able to generate at least one design idea. Of the three remaining children, who were unsuccessful, one was using CI and two were using IDEAS. Thirteen children were able to generate an original idea that was substantially different to the examples provided during the session. Two children were unsuccessful in producing a final design that satisfied the brief of a ‘mathematics-based game’, both using the IDEAS technique. Six out of 10 children required additional support provided in the IDEAS technique. The number of ideas across both techniques was comparable overall, but the support offered by IDEAS helped four children successfully produce a final design not possible using CI.

Conclusions: Children with ASD can potentially be involved in the activities undertaken in PD sessions. Over half the children in this study generated ideas without any support and the majority of children were successful with support. Some children clearly have the capability to participate in a full Cooperative Inquiry session but other children would need additional support, ideally provided through a specially adapted PD method like IDEAS.