Design-for-error for a Stand-alone Child Attachment Assessment Tool

Designing technology for problem-free operation is vital, but equally important is considering how a user may understand or act upon errors and various other 'stuck' situations if and when they occur. Little is currently known about what children think and want for overcoming errors. In this paper we report on design-for-error workshops with children (age 5-10) in which we staged 3 simulated errors with a health assessment technology. In our developmentally-sensitive study, children witnessed the errors via a puppet show and created low-fidelity models of recovery mechanisms using familiar 'play-things'. We found the children were able to grasp the representational nature of the task. Their ideas were playful and inspired by magical thinking. Their work forced us to reflect on and revisit our own design assumptions. The tasks have had a direct impact on the design of the assessment.