Interviewing the children was also interesting. As Teachman and Gibson conclude
in [29], the quality of data gathered through interviews is always depending on the
interviewer and a good toolkit. In our case, the time before the children would lose
interest and concentration was short. In the case of vulnerable children, we felt that
we needed a stronger, perhaps more versatile toolkit than usual. The challenges in codesigning
with vulnerable children are in part due to communication difficulties and
difficulties in interpreting children’s behavior correctly. For example, when a child
exited the room under a conversation, we were unsure if the child found the interview
to be boring, or was acting on an impulse. Thus, the sessions required additional
awareness, sensitivity, willingness to improvise and adjust techniques, find new ones,
invest more time and possibly other resources.
After the third workshop with children, the final concept for the app was
developed, and the prototyping phase started. The app and the design are further
described in [30]. The initial design phase presented here illustrates the issues and
challenges for researchers when working with this vulnerable user group.