Interactive toy characters as interfaces for children

This chapter describes the theory and practice behind the development of interactive toy interfaces for children that use social mimicry as an interface strategy to build on children’s social expectations to improve the usability of technology for young users.

Abstract

Introduction This chapter describes the theory and practice behind the development of interactive toy interfaces for children. These toys, which resemble familiar characters from children’s media, use social mimicry as an interface strategy. Their movement and speech are scripted based on an implicit understanding of the social rules for each interaction, social rules children themselves already obey. These character-based interfaces are designed to build on children’s social expectations not just to improve the usability of technology for young users, but also to promote learning and development by applying proven social learning methods to technology interaction. The chapter is organized into three sections. The first section provides an overview of the theory and research behind the development of these physical character interfaces. The second section describes how the theory was applied during the product development process for different character-based interfaces for three specific age groups, and how research with users shaped the interfaces so that they matched the abilities and expectations of the target age groups. Finally, current knowledge and future directions for technology interactions using character-based interfaces is discussed.