(2013) posit that “(t)hese children often begin their lives with ready access to the Internet via easily usable touchscreen devices, which could have been designed with toddlers’ touch and swipe movements in mind” (n.p.). (2015), “… has been used in education literature to describe those children born after the introduction of the iPhone in 2007” (n.p.). The term “Digitods…” according Holloway et al. A post-study is planned upon completion of the app. Our research contributes to work on co-design and cooperative inquiry in the fields of User Experience Design, human-computer interaction, human information behavior, information science, interface design, motion design, typeface design and typography for children, and early literacy development. To be inclusive, children in both our app design and user studies were selected from a diverse pool. Additionally, a focus group interview with kindergarten and preschool teachers provided further feedback about the typographic design, stroke order, and gaming rewards. Our young designers tested prototypes, completed task booklets, and were interviewed about their preferences and their feedback informed our design. Librarian Claudia Haines’ rubric ( Haines, 2016) and the Dig Checklist ( Kidmap, 2018.) guided our definition of “quality,” and children served as co-designers in two qualitative user studies. Concrete animations and digital and verbal demonstrations connect the typographic letter to the handwritten counterpart. The app rewards a child’s successful handwriting with an animation of a verb that corresponds with the letter they traced. Starting with a seed grant from Kent State University’s College of Communication and Information, our team sought to create a high-quality and inclusive alphabet app with haptic interactions and simplified gamification to reinforce the basic letter writing skills of young children. Our interdisciplinary, empirical study was inspired by “co-creation” ( Sanders and Stappers, 2008) and “cooperative inquiry” ( Druin, 2005). Organizations responsible for vetting quality products for young people, such as the American Library Association, are developing resources to help identify the best digital products available, but they remain difficult to find, and there is limited guidance for app designers when it comes to designing apps for younger audiences. Apple’s App Store has an abundance of “educational” apps, but many of these apps’ claims are unsubstantiated. Despite their omnipresence, research on the impact of screens on children’s learning lags behind the development of digital tools.
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