Joanna Kwiatkowska Czestochowa University of Technology

Agnieszka Szóstek School of Form Olga Górnicka University of Social Sciences and Humanities

The needs of early school children and their parents with respect to the design of mobile service offers Case Study

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• 23% of children age 7-9 and 70% of European children age 12-13 owns mobile phone. Eurobarometer

The main reasons of buying children mobile phone:

• to increase their safety especially when a child is leaving for a longer period of time,

• to facilitate the organization of their daily schedules.

The Australian Mobile Telecommunication Association

Early school children and mobile services

The facts from child developmend process

• at this age children tend to play in gender specific groups,

• they are forming their hobbies and subject specific interest,

• they are developing their learning strategies and the ability to study independently,

• for the first time they become a part of a social group and learn how to form friendships, - they become more and more independent from their parents.

Piaget

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The facts concerning children attitude towards technology

• games and entertainment are important for children development,

• it is important to ensure the appropriateness between children age and their changing needs for technology,

• there are significant differences in use of technology among children until ages 13 to 15, communication is at this age more crucial for girls than boys.

Markopoulos, Read, MacFarlan, Hoysniemi

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Project goals

• identification of the requirements of parents pertaining the mobile needs of their children,

• comparison of the mobile needs of children age 7-8 with those age 9-10,

• comparison of the mobile needs of boys and girls for the aforementioned age groups.

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Approach

Workshops Participants

Series 1Boys age 7 – 8

4 participants

Girls age 7 – 8

5 participants

Parents

9 participants

Series 2Boys age 9 – 10

6 participants

Girls age 9 – 10

6 participants

Parents

12 participants

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Session with children

• a discussion about mobile phones, mobile offers and mobile providers,

• a comparison of the feature phone and smartphone,• a discussion of the current use of mobile phones by

children,• drawing and describing the ideal mobile phone,• drawing and describing their favourite games and media

they would like to own and share with other children,• drawing a network of people children communicate with,• a discussion about and ideal mobile phone and an

accompanying mobile service offer.

Boys, 7-8 years old

Example of drawings of ideal phones.

Example of drawings of communication networks.

Session with parents

• description of each child and its mobile use, • selection of five most important criteria for a mobile offer for

a child (the list of 21 criteria, parents were also asked to add their own criteria),

• drawing a network of the child’s contacts, • creating an ideal mobile offer for children, • discussing scenarios - phone related needs of children in

case of an emergency.

Data analysis

• data transcription to post-it notes, • affinity diagram technique, • conventional content analysis.

Three category of needs:

• safety (parents), • entertainment (younger boys), • communication (older girls).

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Mobile needs of children age 7-8

• girls: communication with family and 2-3 girl friends; games already installed on their phones.

• boys: phone as a mobile game console, they were able to take advantage of Internet functionality to download new games.

• all children: personalisation of the visual appearance of the hardware (stickers, covers, etc.) and software (wall-papers, photos of personal contacts); camera and music player.

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Mobile needs of children age 9-10

• girls: social identity build with items like photos, music and self-recorded video; SMS functionality, Internet - discovered potential.

• boys: social identity is derived from a possession of high-tech apparatus; communication - phone calls; Internet - downloading music, games and videos.

• all children: need for localisation functionality of their phones (important element of social identity).

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Design implications: safety I

The use of the mobile phone by the child - elements of the mobile service offer:

• the possibility to block numbers,

• website with rankings of safe games, music and video,

• geo-location of child’s phone of the parents,

• reports describing the usage of child’s phone,

• possibility to add money to child’s phone from the parent’s phone.

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Design implications: safety II

Needs concerning emergency situations - elements of the service mobile offer:

• charge-free calls to parents,

• emergency numbers accessible on the main screen,

• a report about making an emergency call form child’s phone sent to the parents,

• sending automatic indication to the emergency line that a child is calling,

• a button to call for help when a child is in danger.

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Design implications: entertainment

Elements of the service mobile offer:

• an Internet package, • a preloaded package of games selected according to the

age and the gender of a child, • access to quizzes helping children in a playful manner to

learn, • gender-specific accessories for the phone such as stickers,

covers, wall-papers, widgets, etc., • a mobile website with games and other content dedicated

for children, • an application to record child’s voice and play it back, • virtual gadgets such as collection cards to be exchanged

among children.

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Design implications: communication

Elements of the service mobile offer:

• charge-free calls to the selected numbers,

• a possibility to dynamically increase the limits for the Internet and SMSs according to the child changing needs,

• setting up the reminders on the parent phone to add money to the child account,

• providing reports enabling the parents to control child expenditure.

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Summary

• there are differences regarding mobile service offers needs between children age 7-8 and age 9-10 and also between girls and boys,

• individual inquiries - parents with their children were constructing mobile services offers that fulfilled their expectations and needs: 94 couples (February 2013),

• construction of the mobile service offer for children age 7-8.