Co-Designing with Preschoolers Using Fictional Inquiry and Comicboarding

In this case study, we describe a design workshop with 7 children age 4-6 using existing co-design techniques known to elicit design insights in older individuals. We found that our 5- and 6-year-old participants successfully generated design ideas using these methods, while 4-year-olds were unable to create solutions in a traditional format. However, these younger children enthusiastically offered opportunities where, with methodological guidance, the researcher could have followed the child’s lead and shifted the design question to one that was potentially more meaningful for the participant. We propose future work to examine the effectiveness of giving these younger participants greater authority in defining and scoping the problem space.