Involving Teenagers Today in the Design of Tomorrow’s Technology

Younger people appear adept at creating accurate mental models of product interaction and acquiring new and relevant knowledge through experiential learning. This chapter highlights and explains some of the differences in interaction and learning that occur according to age. This is achieved by revealing the existence of age-effects regarding prior experience and their effect upon interaction with a novel contemporary product, chosen at random for its newness to market, and by investigating if young people, based on their experience of contemporary technology, are able to create more accurate mental models of engagement that facilitate superior interaction. The overall aim is to present best practice when involving teenagers and young people in research to optimise their influence on product and interaction design, and to maximise the output of ideation and design insight acquisition exercises. This is explored by framing interaction in terms of Rasmussen’s (1993) Skill, Rule and Knowledge-based Model of Behaviour to determine how knowledge acquisition is facilitated and to identify instances of interactional complexity that could be overcome by better design with input from real users. The work illustrates how insight acquisition activity can drive better and more effective design research in the real world with a greater likelihood of adoption and increased commercial success; designing engaging products for a teenage demographic necessitates their close involvement throughout the design process. This chapter provides examples of how this might be achieved by focussing upon how to better include, motivate and involve teenagers within empirical and commercial research activity.