Designing interfaces for children with motor impairments: an ethnographic approach

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to convey the results of a user-oriented interaction design process based upon an ethnographic study developed in a school for motor-impaired children. Being this school part of the Uruguayan instance of the One Laptop Per Child program, we focused the research in how the children interact with the laptops provided by the program. Participant observation, interviews and questionnaires allowed for the conception of a multimodal interaction framework aiming to improve accessibility and enhance the autonomy of the school’s children. Within this work, a working prototype was developed, demonstrating the feasibility and usefulness of the proposed interaction schema. We expect this experience of conducting an ethnographic research to serve as a case study for user interface designers and human-computer interaction researchers interested in designing interaction for children in similar contexts.