Children's preferences in design of multimedia application

Many companies have tried designing educational multimedia for children because they believe that multimedia has enormous potential. Despite having very good design features there are some that children like and some they do not. This paper is about children using multimedia. It is an account of chi...

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Main Author: Sheik Said, Normahdiah
Format: Article
Published: IDOSI Publications 2011
Online Access:http://psasir.upm.edu.my/id/eprint/24346/
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spelling my.upm.eprints.243462015-11-06T14:15:48Z http://psasir.upm.edu.my/id/eprint/24346/ Children's preferences in design of multimedia application Sheik Said, Normahdiah Many companies have tried designing educational multimedia for children because they believe that multimedia has enormous potential. Despite having very good design features there are some that children like and some they do not. This paper is about children using multimedia. It is an account of children's preferences and was used as a scoping study to the development of a model on how to make multimedia successful. This research uses a grounded theory discovery led by children method. Twelve children aged 9-10, from a primary school in Lough borough, United Kingdom, were chosen to take part in this study over a period of three days using different sets of materials. Books were also included besides publicly available multimedia CDs to help children in articulating their preferences. The study was done in a natural settings slightly structured in nature. Findings from this study have revealed that not all multimedia designed for them is appealing to children and the criteria of success fullness is about engagement and being engaged. Unsuccessful design need an external motivation e.g. as instructed by teacher, parents, etc. for children to continue interacting with it. The preferences tended to be the driving force that influenced the children's behavior with the multimedia applications given to them. Some children tended to be engrossed by some features and distracted by others. Basically a multimedia has to be interactive to engage children. Children must be able to do something with it to make them engaged by it. Therefore it could be concluded that passive design, like just looking at the information on a screen, bores children. IDOSI Publications 2011 Article PeerReviewed Sheik Said, Normahdiah (2011) Children's preferences in design of multimedia application. World Applied Sciences Journal, 14. pp. 64-71. ISSN 1818-4952; ESSN: 1991-6426
institution Universiti Putra Malaysia
building UPM Library
collection Institutional Repository
continent Asia
country Malaysia
content_provider Universiti Putra Malaysia
content_source UPM Institutional Repository
url_provider http://psasir.upm.edu.my/
description Many companies have tried designing educational multimedia for children because they believe that multimedia has enormous potential. Despite having very good design features there are some that children like and some they do not. This paper is about children using multimedia. It is an account of children's preferences and was used as a scoping study to the development of a model on how to make multimedia successful. This research uses a grounded theory discovery led by children method. Twelve children aged 9-10, from a primary school in Lough borough, United Kingdom, were chosen to take part in this study over a period of three days using different sets of materials. Books were also included besides publicly available multimedia CDs to help children in articulating their preferences. The study was done in a natural settings slightly structured in nature. Findings from this study have revealed that not all multimedia designed for them is appealing to children and the criteria of success fullness is about engagement and being engaged. Unsuccessful design need an external motivation e.g. as instructed by teacher, parents, etc. for children to continue interacting with it. The preferences tended to be the driving force that influenced the children's behavior with the multimedia applications given to them. Some children tended to be engrossed by some features and distracted by others. Basically a multimedia has to be interactive to engage children. Children must be able to do something with it to make them engaged by it. Therefore it could be concluded that passive design, like just looking at the information on a screen, bores children.
format Article
author Sheik Said, Normahdiah
spellingShingle Sheik Said, Normahdiah
Children's preferences in design of multimedia application
author_facet Sheik Said, Normahdiah
author_sort Sheik Said, Normahdiah
title Children's preferences in design of multimedia application
title_short Children's preferences in design of multimedia application
title_full Children's preferences in design of multimedia application
title_fullStr Children's preferences in design of multimedia application
title_full_unstemmed Children's preferences in design of multimedia application
title_sort children's preferences in design of multimedia application
publisher IDOSI Publications
publishDate 2011
url http://psasir.upm.edu.my/id/eprint/24346/
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score 13.211869