Designing affective animations with children as design partners using role-playing

This paper describes a user-centred participatory-design method, novel to the domain of interaction design of affective components for learning, for gathering user requirements from children. The method was considered to be suitable and appealing for children in terms of participating in design, and led to the definition of a sample of digital animations that portray a set of emotional states. The method's main novelty lies in the use of real actors as design partners to express affect, and includes comic strips in the data gathered. This method is believed of value for future design of affective components in educational context by, and for, children.