As more information resources become accessible using computers, our digital interfaces to those resources need to be appropriate for all people. However when it comes to digital libraries, the interfaces have typically been designed for older children or adults. Therefore, we have begun to develop a digital library interface developmentally appropriate for young children (ages 5-10 years old). Our prototype system we now call "QueryKids" offers a graphical interface for querying, browsing and reviewing search results. This paper describes our motivation for the research, the design partnership we established between children and adults, our design process, the technology outcomes of our current work, and the lessons we have learned. Keywords Children, digital libraries, information retrieval design techniques, education applications, participatory design, cooperative inquiry, intergenerational design team, zoomable user interfaces (ZUIs). THE NEED FOR RESEARCH A growing body of k...

This article analyzes Web searching behavior for homework assignments of high school students through field observations in class and at the terminal with students thinking aloud, and through interviews with various participants, including the teacher and librarian. Students performed focused searching and progressed through a search swiftly and flexibly. They used landmarks and assumed that one can always start a new search and ask for help. They were satisfied with their searches and the results, but impatient with slow response. The students enjoyed searching the Web because it had a variety of formats, it showed pictures, it covered a multitude of subjects and it provided easy access to information. Difficulties and problems students encountered emphasize the need for training to all involved, and for a system design that is based on user seeking and searching behavior.

As we seek both to improve public school education in high technology areas and to link libraries and classrooms on the “information superhighway, ” we need to understand more about children’s information searching abilities. We present results of four experiments conducted on four ver-sions of the Science Library Catalog (SLC), a Dewey deci-mal-based hierarchical browsing system implemented in HyperCard without a keyboard. The experiments were conducted over a 3-year period at three sites, with four da-tabases, and with comparisons to two different keyword online catalogs. Subjects were ethnically and culturally di-verse children aged 9 through 12; with 32 to 34 children participating in each experiment. Children were provided explicit instruction and reference materials for the key-word systems but not for the SLC. The number of search topics matched was comparable across all systems and all experiments; search times were comparable, though they varied among the four SLC versions and between the two

In this paper we describe the first version of the International Children's Digital Library (ICDL). As a fiveyear research project, its mission is to enable children to access and read an international collection of children's books through the development of new interface technologies. This paper will describe the need for such research, our work in the context of other digital libraries for children, and an initial analysis of the first seven weeks of the ICDL's public use on the web.

Four focus groups were held with young Web users (10 to 13 years of age) to explore design criteria for Web portals. The focus group participants commented upon four existing portals designed with young users in mind: AskJeevesforKids,KidsClick,LycosZone,andYahooligans! This article reports their first impressions on using these portals, their likes and dislikes, and their suggestionsforimprovements.Designcriteriaforchildren’s Webportalsareelaboratedbaseduponthesecomments under four headings: portal goals, visual design, informationarchitecture,andpersonalization.Anidealportal should cater for both educational and entertainment needs, use attractive screen designs based especially on effective use of color, graphics, and animation, provide both keyword search facilities and browsable subjectcategories,andallowindividualuserpersonalization in areas such as color and graphics.

Over the last three years, we have been developing a collaborative digital library interface where two children can collaborate using multiple mice on a single computer to access multimedia information concerning animals. This technology, called "SearchKids" leverages our lab's past work in co-present collaborative zoomable interfaces for young children. This paper describes the differences in children's collaborative behavior and dialogue when using two different software conditions to search for animals in the digital library. In this study, half the children had to "confirm" their collaborative activities (e.g., both children had to click on a given area to move to that area). The other half used an "independent" collaboration technique (e.g., just one mouse click allows the pair to move to that area). The participants in this study were 98 second and third grade children (ages 7-9 years old) from a suburban public elementary school in Prince George's County, Maryland. The children were randomly divided into two groups and paired with a classmate of the same gender. Each pair was asked to find as many items as possible from a list of 20 items given a limit of 20 minutes. Sessions were video taped and the first and last five minutes of each session were coded for discussion type and frequency. The results of our study showed distinct differences between groups in how children discussed their shared goals, collaborative tasks, and what outcomes they had in successfully finding multimedia information in the digital library. These findings suggest various ways educators might use and technologists might develop new collaborative technologies for learning.

Reading books plays an important role in children's cognitive and social development. However, many children do not have access to diverse collections of books due to the limited resources of their community libraries. We have begun to address this issue by creating a large-scale digital archive of children's books, the International Children's Digital Library (ICDL). In this paper we discuss our initial efforts in building the ICDL, concentrating on an informal evaluation of innovative digital book readers.

This study describes how elementary school students search for and select books using a digital library. This work was done as part of the International Children’s Digital Library (ICDL) project in order to explore and discover new directions for the development of digital library interfaces for children ages 3-13. Children used two versions of the ICDL software to search for, select, and read books. We performed a frequency analysis of the number of queries run, books selected, and books opened, and compared book selection rates and book opening rates. Popular query categories and titles selected are tallied. We found differences in book

Children are among the most frequent users of the Internet, yet searching and browsing the web can present many challenges. Studies over the past two decades on how children search were conducted with finite and predetermined content found in CD-ROM applications, online digital libraries, and web directories. However, with the current popularity of the open Internet and keyword-based interfaces for searching it, more critical analysis of the challenges children face today is needed. This paper presents the findings of our initial study to understand how children ages 7, 9, and 11 search the Internet using keyword interfaces in the home. Our research has revealed that although today’s children have been exposed to computers for most of their lives, spelling, typing, query formulation, and deciphering results are all still potential barriers to finding the information they need. frequent use of the Internet and exposure to technology at an early age, when asked ‘what frustrates you most about searching on the Internet’, several child participants in our study provided some revealing answers. Child (age 7): “Writing words is hard for me because I'm not really good at the writing.” Child (age 9): “It doesn’t do all the words you say.” Child (age 11): “It's hard because you have to find the right words to put in the box."

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