Though many children use mobile applications to support their learning and entertainment, the devices and underlying interactions were not designed specifically for children. The goal of this project is to make touch and gesture interactions more accessible and user-friendly to young users. This research will yield new understanding about the appropriate and successful ways to sense, recognize, and recover from errors in touch-based interactions with children. The approach involves studying children interacting with mobile applications that gather data on their touch and gesture interactions, as well as conducting design sessions with children to elicit their preferences for mobile device interactions and error feedback and recovery strategies. This approach will result in design guidelines for those creating applications and tools for young users. The proposed research contributes towards the evolution of alternative interaction technologies such as touch and gesture, and the understanding of child-computer interaction with new gesture-based technologies.
Broader impacts: The broader impacts of this project lie in contributions towards the evolution of alternative interaction technologies such as touch and gesture, and the understanding of child-computer interaction with new gesture-based technologies. This work also will develop and validate an approach for investigating such interaction issues and designing improvements for them that can be used in future work with other populations such as older individuals or those with varying physical abilities. The grant will support two female young investigators, and will fund research experiences to benefit computer science students attending Bowie State University, a minority serving institution.
