Card sorting activities with preschool children

Preschoolers' categorization differs from adults'; therefore it is beneficial to involve them in the design process to create appropriate information architecture for this age group. In this paper, we describe three card sorting activities conducted with a total of fifty six preschool children in five nurseries. We conclude that a closed card sorting task can be combined with a match-to-sample activity to offer insight into children's categorization knowledge, contributing significantly to the design of technology for young children.

[1]  Gregory L Murphy,et al.  An apple is more than just a fruit: cross-classification in children's concepts. , 2003, Child development.

[2]  Kara Reuter,et al.  Children ’ s acquisition of categories and the implications for research in the development of classification schemes , 2006 .

[3]  Yao-Ting Sung,et al.  Designing multimedia games for young children's taxonomic concept development , 2008, Comput. Educ..

[4]  Gedeon O Deák,et al.  Matching and naming objects by shape or function: age and context effects in preschool children. , 2002, Developmental psychology.

[5]  C. Mervis,et al.  Acquisition of basic object categories , 1980, Cognitive Psychology.

[6]  Yvonne Rogers,et al.  Designing for or designing with? Informant design for interactive learning environments , 1997, CHI.

[7]  John S N Anderson,et al.  Ben , 2006, British medical journal.

[8]  Allison Druin,et al.  Chapter 3: Children as Our Technology Design Partners+ , 1998 .

[9]  Mary Czerwinski,et al.  The role of usability research in designing children's computer products , 1998 .

[10]  William Hudson,et al.  Playing your cards right: getting the most from card sorting for navigation design , 2005, INTR.

[11]  Gary Lewandowski,et al.  Genetic programming for association rules on card sorting data , 2005, GECCO '05.

[12]  Josef Perner,et al.  Sorting between dimensions: conditions of cognitive flexibility in preschoolers. , 2008, Journal of experimental child psychology.

[13]  B. Bederson,et al.  Children as our technology design partners , 1998 .

[14]  U. Goswami,et al.  Cognition In Children , 1998 .

[15]  Linda B. Smith.  Emerging Ideas About Categories , 2005 .