Designing Mobile Phones for Children - Human-Computer Interaction and Innovation in Handheld, Mobile and Wearable Technologies - page 311

These design ideas are only suggestions based
on the short study reported here. Collectively they
would remove some of the uncertainty of mobile
phone use for parents and children and support
the goals of both parties in a more effective way.

Attewell, J. (2004). Mobile Technologies and
Learning . London: Learning and Skills Develop-
ment Agency.

Axup, J., & Bidwell, N. J. (2005). Usability of a
Mobile, Group Communication Prototype While
Rendezvousing. Paper presented at the CTS 2005,
St Louis, Missouri, USA.

CONCLUSION

Berg, S., Taylor, A. S., & Harper, R. (2003). Mobile
Phones for the Next Generation: Device Designs
for Teenagers. Paper presented at the CHI 2003,
Ft Lauderdale, Florida.

The argument has been made that, as opposed
to the status quo, children might be deserving
of mobile phones that are specially designed for
them. There is a compelling case for this to happen
given that children of ever younger ages are being
given, or are asking for, mobile phones and given
the assumed (although currently inappropriately
so) ideas of parents that by giving their children
mobile phones they make them safer.
In this article I have proposed some early de-
sign changes that would better suit the needs of
the children and their parents but it is clear that
much more work needs to be done to elicit needs
and understand trends of use with children and
new users of mobile technology.
This is an area ripe for research and ready to
be studied. Currently I am investigating security
privacy and trust in mobile systems for children as
young as three—clearly this is an age group who
would be unlikely to be users of mobile phones
but the needs for security will be transferable for
many of the older age children.
Mobile phones offer great benefits—even for
children!

Brouwer-Janse, M. D., Suri, J. F., Yawitz, M., de
Vries, G., Fozard, J. L., & Coleman, R. (1997).
User Interfaces for Young and Old. Interaction ,
2 (2), 34-46. doi:10.1145/245129.245133

Burgess, A. (2002). Comparing national re-
sponses to perceived health risks from mobile
phone masts. Health Risk & Society , 2 , 175-188.
doi:10.1080/13698570220137051

Carroll, J., Howard, S., Vetere, F., Peck, J., &
Murphy, J. (2002). Just what do the youth of today
want? Technology appropriation by young people.
Paper presented at the 35th Hawaii International
Conference on System Sciences.

Clarke, A. (2005). Guidelines for the design and
deployment of ICT products and services used by
children ( [). Sophia Antipolis, France: ETSI.].
ETSI EG , 202 , 423.

Colbert, M. (2005). Age differences rendezvous-
ing: reminders for side-stepping. Personal and
Ubiquitous Computing , 9 , 404-412. doi:10.1007/
s00779-005-0032-9

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Druin, A. (1999). Cooperative inquiry: Develop-
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Aitken, S. (2001). The Geography of Young
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