General Practice and Primary Care - Research Publications
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ItemExploring how to develop a technology-based speech learning app using a co-design method with parents of young children( 2020-09-04)While designers have traditionally relied on their creative intuition to solve clients’ problems, more recently designers have trialled a variety of end-user methods to include audience preferences. Co-design is one of these methods and although not commonly used by communication designers the co-design method has been used in a variety of design fields. This study aimed to explore how to develop a technology-based speech learning app, using a co-design method with parents of young children, where the goal was to prompt young children to speak. Practices developed to assist speech learning for young children are lacking and as such are poorly understood. The practices that exist within speech therapy sessions usually involved speech pathologists using paper-based materials. Consequently, there is a gap for communication design to understand how to develop a technology-based speech learning app for young children. There is a growing interest in designing assistive tools to help parents and speech pathologists with speech development with young children by using advances in technology. However, there are few studies that examined these issues using a co-design method with parents as end-users, developing a design outcome for speech development. An iterative co-design method was used with 10 Master of Design students, 14 parents of young children, two child-care workers, two speech pathologists and one expert reviewer, in a pilot study with four phases of co-design workshops. The findings were categorised into themes and analysed using a thematic analysis methodology. Through this study, a design outcome was iteratively co-designed with all end-users and a final technology-based speech learning app design prototype was agreed upon. The study focused on the needs and preferences of parents as the end-users, while incorporating their creative ideas and insights into the iterative co-design process. The significant contribution and outcome of this thesis is eight key learnings for designing a technology-based speech learning app for young children, half related to the technology design and the other half related to the narrative design. The technology key learnings are: use animation to increase engagement, maintain attention, and invite participation; use technology as parents approved if it is for educational purposes; provide clear instructions on how to navigate through the app; and use rhyming and repetition to support learning process with audio rewards. The narrative key learnings are: include parent-child interaction in human-computer interaction; engage parents as the end-users when designing for young children; create a life-related scenario in a storyline; and use vibrant colours, readable typefaces, characters, and visual rewards. These narrative design elements are the significant contribution of knowledge that this thesis make. Although it might appear that designing a technology-based speech learning app is mainly based on the human-computer interaction, nevertheless the researcher argues the design process is a social not a technical challenge because there were equally as many key elements focusing on the narrative design compared to the technology aspect of the design.