Participatory design techniques support users' direct involvement in the design and formative evaluation of software prototypes. The potential for improving the resulting designs has been shown by others to be significant. In the case of educational technology, this means involving relatively young students and poses numerous challenges.
We experienced moderate success in a guided collaboration effort at a private middle school around a component-based technology for constructing mathematics resources; we were able to unambiguously answer questions about the viability of the technological approach (these results are discussed in another article). And we were able to support an enjoyable and beneficial collaboration between university researchers and middle school students.
Further, we derived considerable direct experience with the participatory design process in the middle school context. As a consequence, we have improved on our original methodology and anticipate applying it again in future projects. We believe that this kind of design process offers considerable value to educational software designers, especially in the very early stages of conception and development.
We will derive the most from students when we
trust them to fill authentic research roles; this means inviting the
students into the very early stages of design. Once the groundwork has
been laid, the students will be more engaged during the more detailed
design work which follows.