Engage and listen to the views of children in product development and design
Consultation is vital to respect children’s voices and experiences in digital innovation. The right to be heard assures children opportunities to ‘freely’ express their views and have these views given ‘due weight’ ‘in all matters affecting [them]’. This right is crucial to counterbalance social and cultural biases against recognising children’s views.
By positioning children as design partners, innovators can meaningfully involve them throughout the design and development processes, and demonstrate how their design objectives shaped the outcomes. It also means creating opportunities for children to have their views heard in relevant decision-making processes.
To be meaningful and effective, consultation with children should be ‘transparent and informative, voluntary, respectful, relevant [to the child], child-friendly, inclusive, supported by training, safe and accountable’. Innovators should flexibly use the forms of communication that work best for children, bearing in mind their age (or ‘evolving capacities’) and circumstances (including digital inclusion or barriers to participation). Crucially, it should include communicating to children how their views ‘influence the outcome of the process’ in practice.
“We have the right to speak up, and people should listen.”
Child aged 11-12, Yorkshire
While engaging children in designing and developing digital technologies is an already established design practice, it is often only used for products and services intended for children. Yet many children use products and services not intended for them.
Children are generally keen to inform digital innovation. They are often avid users of digital technologies and value being heard about their experiences. Children are creative and playful; their imagination and playfulness can spark brilliant designs.
Design cases
Listening to children’s views in the context of digital innovation is not the same as the kinds of market research that seeks to identify gaps in the market that a product or service can fill. Nor does it refer to user experience (UX) research to test usability or user acceptance. In a child rights context, engaging children in design aims to enhance the realisation of their rights (safety, play, non-discrimination etc.). It is not enough to aim, instrumentally, to improve the product’s potential sales – although companies can, of course, do that as well – because rarely, if ever, does this attend to the ‘relevance or materiality of child rights issues’.
“Well because we’re children, we don’t think they’ll actually want to talk to us. They don’t want to take us seriously.”
Child aged 13-14, Essex
In product development and design, practices that implement children’s right to be heard are grounded in cooperative design and participatory design. An example is a two-year robot design project, YOLO, which resulted in a creativity simulation robot for play times in which children took an active part in all the design stages – discover, define, develop and deliver – and performed various roles, including design partners who made decisions about the robot’s behaviour.
When children are cast as ‘research partners’, they may work side by side with adult design team members to ‘gather field data, initiate ideas, test and develop new prototypes’ rather than being positioned as ‘subjects for teaching’ or objects of study. This means that neither children nor adults make ‘all the design decisions.’ In short, respecting children’s right to be heard involves going beyond merely consulting children and committing to collaborating with them as partners.
Other ways of representing children’s needs and rights can be helpful, such as consulting academic experts, civil society organisations, youth organisations, parents and caregivers. But these alternatives should not be chosen merely out of convenience or cost saving.
“The BBC are very good because they listen to children.”
Child aged 11-12, Yorkshire
Relevant legal frameworks and guidance
The Lundy Model sets out four linked conditions for children’s meaningful engagement in research, business and policy decision-making more widely.
Safe, inclusive, equal and respectful space for children and young people to form and express their views
Facilitated participation to ensure meaningful voices
Audience keen to listen
Demonstrating how children’s views can influence decisions.
Designing for Children’s Rights also draws innovators’ attention to children’s voices:
“I am and I can, so take my ideas in account first.
Karolin, 11 years old, Estonia
Note that directly engaging children involves ethical considerations – such as recruiting participants, supporting and ensuring the meaningful engagement of children and young people, and obtaining meaningful consent from a child and their parents or caregivers.
