Research and mobile application
Exploring the Potential
of Children in Crowdsourcing
of Children in Crowdsourcing
Why?
Recently, companies and academia have turned to crowdsourcing to stimulate creativity and innovation. Although children's creative nature has been well documented in the design process in co-creation for new products and/or services, this has not yet extended to crowdsourcing.
Their creative potential and learning needs could potentially benefit children as workers and as requesters alike.
With this project, we investigate — through crowdsourcing — the gap between children and crowdsourcing.
The most valued concept of the crowd was the collaboration between parents and children, who are innovating for companies. This concept involves publishing companies requesting drawings from children for book illustrations.
With this project, we investigate — through crowdsourcing — the gap between children and crowdsourcing.
The most valued concept of the crowd was the collaboration between parents and children, who are innovating for companies. This concept involves publishing companies requesting drawings from children for book illustrations.
Research
To gather a diverse sample of participants we used CrowdFlower,
a crowdsourcing platform. In our process we adopted the work of Nickerson and Sakamoto. In this method, the crowd is approached first for idea generation and then for idea evaluation and synthesis
To gather a diverse sample of participants we used CrowdFlower,
a crowdsourcing platform. In our process we adopted the work of Nickerson and Sakamoto. In this method, the crowd is approached first for idea generation and then for idea evaluation and synthesis
Generate Ideas
We asked the crowd (100 participants):
"Do you have kids?"
"On an engaging crowdsourcing platform,
how would you involve children?"
"Do you have kids?"
"On an engaging crowdsourcing platform,
how would you involve children?"
Out of the 60% participants that were parents, 93% responded that they would involve their children in crowdsourcing for several reasons:
for collaborating with them; for hobby; for some extra income. From the 40% that were not parents, 80% stated they would involve children as an external source of inspiration.
Group Ideas
We classified all the ideas into five categories of possible roles children could play in crowdsourcing. Each category contained a subset of five specific ideas.
Testing and tasks
Kids giving input for:
- books
- surveys
- apps
- games
- comics / cartoons
Playfulness
- Kids draw in order to complete a task
- Kids send question to others in form of quizzes
- Kids play digital table games
- Kids use games to learn intellectual (educational) skills
- Kids help in game creation
Collaboration
- Kids collaborate with adults
- Kids collaborate with other kids
- Parents collaborate with own children
- Companies, parents and children collaborate together (co-creation)
- Companies and children collaboration
Inspiration
- Following child's mentality of "everything is possible" (no limitations)
- Using kids in the brainstorming process for business innovation
- Kids design specialised gifts, books, games, cartoons
- Kids helping design the creative part of a platform with drawings
- Kids sharing thoughts without embarrassment
Learning
- Kids learn in order to improve intellectual skills
- Adults learn from kids' perspective
- Kids exploring their future profession
- Kids exploring digital skills
- Kids learn the language, mathematics and other fields
Evaluate Ideas
We asked the crowd (100 participants) to rate each of the five ideas within a category on a 1 to 5 scale.
(1-low preference, 5-high preference)
Eight ideas with a mean value of at least 4.0:
(1-low preference, 5-high preference)
Eight ideas with a mean value of at least 4.0:
Testing and tasks
- Kids provide input for creation of books
- Kids provide input for creation of comics and cartoons
- Kids help companies by testing games
Playfulness
- Kids learn and grow intellectually by using the platform
- Kids contributing to game creation
Collaboration
- Kids collaborating with their parents
- Kids collaborating with other kids
- Kids help companies in the creative process by sharing thoughts without embarrassment
Rank Ideas
We asked the crowd (50 participants) to rank ideas:
"If there would be a platform for children to participate in a safe crowdsourcing community, what would you like to be the core values of this platform? Please check 3 options"
"If there would be a platform for children to participate in a safe crowdsourcing community, what would you like to be the core values of this platform? Please check 3 options"
16%
15%
15%
14%
12%
11%
8%
Preferable ideas chosen by participants
for involving children in crowdsourcing platforms:
Kids collaborating with other kids
Kids learn and grow intellectually by using the platform
Kids contributing to game creation
Kids help companies by testing games
Kids provide input for creation of books and comics
Kids help companies in the creative process by sharing thoughts without embarrassment
Kids collaborating with their parents
for involving children in crowdsourcing platforms:
Kids collaborating with other kids
Kids learn and grow intellectually by using the platform
Kids contributing to game creation
Kids help companies by testing games
Kids provide input for creation of books and comics
Kids help companies in the creative process by sharing thoughts without embarrassment
Kids collaborating with their parents
Generate
and Rate Ideas
and Rate Ideas
We brainstormed and envisioned possible concepts for crowdsourcing applications that would involve children, incorporating the highest voted core values.
Then we asked the crowd (50 participants) to choose the one concept they liked the most and we also gave the opportunity to elaborate on their choice with an open-ended question.
Then we asked the crowd (50 participants) to choose the one concept they liked the most and we also gave the opportunity to elaborate on their choice with an open-ended question.
Illustrations for books
where children and parents together help out publishing companies for drawing tasks
42%
42%
Unresolved mysteries
with children helping scientists brainstorm about unresolved mysteries on a digital platform
34%
34%
Future professions
involving other professionals for children to learn about future work from a first person perspective
24%
24%
Final concept:
Illustrations for books
"Imagine a platform that a publishing company could use to request drawings from kids, based on a story. Parents are able to pick a story from the app, read it to their kids and let them draw freely. These drawings can then be submitted to the publisher via the app. The winning drawing will receive a reward, for example a copy of the finished book."
Prototypes
and App Development
and App Development
Prototypes
Creating a paper prototype helped us to scope our work towards the child-parent interaction part of the app. After evaluation of the paper prototype we created an interactive prototype in Marvel.
Our interactive Marvel prototype can be seen here!
Our interactive Marvel prototype can be seen here!
App Development
We created a web server, so that any app or website can store and retrieve tasks through an API. As an example — our KIDcrowd app retrieves its tasks from this server. In that way tasks could be sent from any place, so a publisher would be able to upload them through
their own website to the KIDcrowd website/app directly:
their own website to the KIDcrowd website/app directly:
Final UI design
Nice!
What's next?
What's next?
CHI'16 conference in San Jose!
Workshop
& LBW
at CHI'16
We are going to present our two papers.
First — attending the workshop "Crowd Dynamics: Exploring Conflicts and Contradictions in Crowdsourcing" with the proposal "Crowdsourcing for Children: Exploring Threats and Opportunities"
Second — Late-Breaking Work "Exploring the Potential of Children in Crowdsourcing".
First — attending the workshop "Crowd Dynamics: Exploring Conflicts and Contradictions in Crowdsourcing" with the proposal "Crowdsourcing for Children: Exploring Threats and Opportunities"
Second — Late-Breaking Work "Exploring the Potential of Children in Crowdsourcing".
