Fourteenth International Conference on Design Principles & Practices

Abstract

Design with the help of children can certainly yield better results for designers. This study, first of all, aims to investigate the skills children possess as designers, considering that children’s innate skills are among the building blocks of design. The main objective of this study is to design toys for children with the help of children themselves. In this analytic and case study, children’s designs are analyzed, and 391 volunteer students, both male and female, from schools in northern and southern Tehran, have been asked to design a toy using designing tools (user as a designer). The data yielded by the experiment were analyzed in SPSSWIN17, and the results reveal that children, as consumers of design, can be trained to be “designers.” Moreover, in another hypothesis, children often design toys that are robotic and nowadays prefer to have more interaction with their toys. Children expect to receive a reaction to their thoughts, feelings, words, and actions, and this may be why they tend to design robotic tools which are ready to serve humans. Most children, more than designing a toy for themselves, are seeking a peer or playmate. When they want a toy, they are looking for a human in that toy. This human being is realized in the form of a toy robot.