Did a child-friendly air quality device keep children interested?

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Indoor air pollution is harmful to everyone, but children are particularly vulnerable to its adverse health effects. Although mobile technology is increasingly being designed to help monitor and improve indoor air quality, little attention has been paid to its use by and for children. The researchers previously created inAirKids, a child-friendly device intended to engage children in monitoring indoor air quality, through a participatory design process. They then needed to evaluate its usability in the real world.

The study investigated how inAirKids affects children's understanding of and engagement with indoor air quality through a longitudinal field deployment. Researchers deployed the device in the homes of 9 children aged 6 to 7 years and investigated their use for up to 16 weeks through semistructured, biweekly interviews.

Participants promptly engaged with inAirKids but quickly lost interest because it lacked features to sustain engagement. The researchers identified two design considerations that could foster sustained engagement: designing interactivity for continued engagement and incorporating hands-on activities into indoor air quality monitoring for experiential learning.

The findings illuminate the potential to promote children's engagement with indoor air quality and offer considerations for designing a child-friendly digital device. To the researchers' knowledge, this was the first longitudinal field deployment investigating how to engage children in monitoring indoor air quality.