BOXED
Encouraging Play through Basic Interactive Objects
The BOXED project investigates the use of basic interactive objects as tools, which can encourage active play in children’s natural environments. It is grounded on the insights gained from child development, technology for children and a user centered design approach as well as research on emerging relationships between child and interactive objects.
BOXED are a series of basic interactive objects, which can be used by children as extensions into the world and which can offer them playful interactions. I developed those artifacts in order to pose questions about basic interaction design, children’s active play and their causal reasoning about interactive technologies.
Through observations I demonstrate ways in which children use such objects and which kind of use-cases, stories and scenarios they invent during those interactions. Thereby, I could validate that interactive artifacts can serve as amplifiers for environmental perception. Overall, my research shows that such objects can support the children in reconfiguring and manipulating their environment in a creative and collaborative way.
