10 tips for design research with children

On a recent R&D project, we needed effective practices to help us understand and design for Generation Alpha. We have captured and shared our tips for simple, safe and worthwhile research with children.

At Normally, our work with data and AI regularly takes us on explorations into the future of meaningful digital experiences. 

Recently, we spent time doing research with children to understand how we can design and build future internet experiences that are better for families and young people. We plan to share more on this soon.

One of our methods was online interviews with children aged between eight and 14 years, exploring their use of devices and attitudes towards the internet. 

It has been fascinating to hear how these young people — representative of Generation Alpha — behave online. We discussed their daily routines, preferred devices, and what they do, enjoy, and avoid on the internet. 

Keeping both the children and team members safe and well during studies like this is crucial. Here are 10 of our tips for design and R&D communities for conducting research interviews with children.

1. Consent is key

As with all research, consent from participants is essential. In the case of children under 16, consent is required from both the child and their parent or caregiver. 

Provide parents/caregivers with a clear overview of what the research is for, the interview method, and how their children’s identity will be protected. From there, you must obtain written consent from parents/caregivers in advance of the interviews. 

We also verbally re-affirmed the child’s consent at the start of each interview, adapting our language to make sure this younger audience understood what they were agreeing to.

2. Go online for ease

For our research, online interviews using video conferencing were the best approach for everyone involved, namely for their ease and familiarity. 

Our young participants were entirely at ease with video calls — no doubt thanks to schooling during the pandemic. We also found that online interviews were a lot easier to schedule and reschedule with each family’s busy household diary. 

A note for those seeking to gauge particular behaviours: be mindful that online interviews don’t allow for the same contextual depth and richness that interviews at home or in-situ provide.

3. Prepare your research materials

If you have a discussion guide, for example, prepare and share it with participants in advance of your interview, so they’re familiar with what you’d like to talk about. 

We covered the same themes for all children we interviewed, but adapted our phrasing based on their age and ability. Older children were generally able to answer broader, more open questions, whereas younger children needed questions to be simpler. 

For example, we could say to teens: ‘can you show us some examples of how you regulate your time online?’. Whereas for younger children, we adapted it to: ‘do you have any time limits for how long you can spend on your phone?’.

4. Use visual prompts

Sometimes the children we interviewed needed a little inspiration, so we created a series of visual prompts — in this case, images of devices, and app, gaming and social media logos — that we shared on-screen. These visual aids helped to drive discussions and the sharing of opinions.

Using visual prompts early in the conversation not only gave our participants a highly-visual piece of stimuli to react to at the start, but also gently ‘gamified’ the interview by encouraging them to name and talk about what they saw on-screen. Visual prompts also helped to ease the intensity of being interviewed by an adult.

5. Regular check-ins

When preparing our research, we were mindful of the interviewer effect, which happens when an interviewer’s appearance or behaviour influences the participant’s answers. 

Children can be particularly susceptible to this, and it can impede their autonomy to answer honestly, change their mind, or leave the interview. To account for this, we recommend careful observation and regular verbal check-ins with interviewees, to ensure they are happy to continue with the conversation. 

6. Opt for early in the week

Some of our participants rain checked sessions on Thursdays and Fridays, moving them to the start of the next week. While we didn’t probe for a reason why, it’s fair to say that children and families often have waning energy as the week progresses. In turn, researchers might find it better to host research sessions earlier in the week.

7. Keep introductions simple

We found it helpful to keep our introductions simple and easy to understand. Our young participants only needed to know our names during the interviews, as opposed to who we work for and what we do.

We also shared a simple introduction to our research and why we were doing it. In the case of our research, we told our Generation Alpha participants: We are doing some research about how teens use the internet. We would love to learn about what you do online and how you feel about it.

8. Build on what they share

As researchers, it’s common to ask open-ended, non-leading questions. However, when interviewing children a question such as: ‘what do you do online?’ can be too broad. 

As mentioned, visual prompts are helpful, but you can also build on what your participants have previously told you. For example: ‘you mentioned earlier that you like football. Do you look at football stuff online? If so, where?’ 

Again, be mindful not to lead the participant; instead, build on what they have shared so far to uncover more opinions or insight. 

9. Recognise sensitive topics 

Children are often keen to present themselves in the best light, and we saw some reluctance to talk about issues that could be embarrassing or expose them as doing something wrong. 

For example, one child told us that he doesn’t like to take his phone to school. When asked why, he simply said he can’t be bothered to carry it. Wrapping up with his caregivers after the interview, they shared that he’s worried about being mugged. We can infer that this fear makes the participant feel vulnerable, potentially impacting his openness to speak about his phone. 

10. Ask about their peers

If the participant gets stuck on a question or seems unsure of how to answer, you can ask them what their siblings, friends, or classmates might do in the same situation. 

This removes the participant by one degree from any uncomfortable admissions, while still giving some insight into their or their peers’ experience. 

This is, however, another important moment to check how the child is feeling. If they are uncomfortable with the topic, move the conversation on. 

Conclusion

From doing research with children, we have found that a few adaptations can go a long way to engage participants and uncover key insights. 

Children are a core audience for many organisations — if not now, then in the future. They're already online, engaged, and opinionated, so it’s important to prepare for how you speak with, design, and build future products and services for young people. 

If you are doing your own research in this space, we have an open source guide for research with children, which outlines the steps to take before, during, and after research with young people.

Final note

While the average 14-year-old might not consider themselves a child, in a research setting a child can be defined as anyone under 16. The UK’s Department for Education has more details on user research with children here.