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Background: Just-in-time adaptive interventions (JITAIs) in mobile health are an intervention design that provides behavior change support based on an individual's changing and dynamic contextual state. However, few studies have documented how end users of JITAI technologies are involved in their development, particularly from historically marginalized families and children. Less is known for public health researchers and designers of the tensions that occur as families negotiate their needs., Objective: We aimed to broaden our understanding of how historically marginalized families are included in co-design from a public health perspective. We sought to address research questions surrounding JITAIs; co-design; and working with historically marginalized families, including Black, Indigenous, and people of color (BIPOC) children and adults, regarding improving sun protection behaviors. We sought to better understand value tensions in parents' and children's needs regarding mobile health technologies and how design decisions are made., Methods: We examined 2 sets of co-design data (local and web-based) pertaining to a larger study on mobile SunSmart JITAI technologies with families in Los Angeles, California, United States, who were predominantly of Latinx and multiracial backgrounds. In these co-design sessions, we conducted stakeholder analysis through perceptions of harms and benefits and an assessment of stakeholder views and values. We open coded the data and compared the developed themes using a value-sensitive design framework by examining value tensions to help organize our qualitative data. Our study is formatted through a narrative case study that captures the essential meanings and qualities that are difficult to present, such as quotes in isolation., Results: We presented 3 major themes from our co-design data: different experiences with the sun and protection, misconceptions about the sun and sun protection, and technological design and expectations. We also provided value flow (opportunities for design), value dam (challenges to design), or value flow or dam (a hybrid problem) subthemes. For each subtheme, we provided a design decision and a response we ended up making based on what was presented and the kinds of value tensions we observed., Conclusions: We provide empirical data to show what it is like to work with multiple BIPOC stakeholders in the roles of families and children. We demonstrate the use of the value tension framework to explain the different needs of multiple stakeholders and technology development. Specifically, we demonstrate that the value tension framework helps sort our participants' co-design responses into clear and easy-to-understand design guidelines. Using the value tension framework, we were able to sort the tensions between children and adults, family socioeconomic and health wellness needs, and researchers and participants while being able to make specific design decisions from this organized view. Finally, we provide design implications and guidance for the development of JITAI mobile interventions for BIPOC families., (©Jason Yip, Kelly Wong, Isabella Oh, Farisha Sultan, Wendy Roldan, Kung Jin Lee, Jimi Huh. Originally published in JMIR Formative Research (https://formative.jmir.org), 14.04.2023.)

Air pollution is known to be one of the main causes of injuries to the respiratory system and even premature death. Gases, particles, and biological compounds affect not only the air we breathe outdoors, but also indoors. Children are highly affected by the poor quality of the air they breathe because their organs and immune systems are still in the developmental stages. To contribute to raising children's awareness to these concerns, this article presents the design, implementation, and experimental validation of an serious augmented reality game for children to playfully learn about air quality by interacting with physical sensor nodes. The game presents visual representations of the pollutants measured by the sensor node, rendering tangible the invisible. Causal knowledge is elicited by stimulating the children to expose real-life objects (e.g., candles) to the sensor node. The playful experience is amplified by letting children play in pairs. The game was evaluated using the Wizard of Oz method in a sample of 27 children aged between 7 and 11 years. The results show that the proposed game, in addition to improving children's knowledge about indoor air pollution, is also perceived by them as easy to use and a useful learning tool that they would like to continue using, even in other educational contexts.

Iteratively building and testing machine learning models can help children develop creativity, flexibility, and comfort with machine learning and artificial intelligence. We explore how children use machine teaching interfaces with a team of 14 children (aged 7-13 years) and adult co-designers. Children trained image classifiers and tested each other's models for robustness. Our study illuminates how children reason about ML concepts, offering these insights for designing machine teaching experiences for children: (i) ML metrics ( e.g. confidence scores) should be visible for experimentation; (ii) ML activities should enable children to exchange models for promoting reflection and pattern recognition; and (iii) the interface should allow quick data inspection ( e.g. images vs. gestures).

This study evaluates and compares the suitability for child-computer interaction (CCI, the branch within human-computer interaction focused on interactive computer systems for children) of two devices: a standard computer mouse and the ENLAZA interface, a head mouse that measures the user's head posture using an inertial sensor. A multidirectional pointing task was used to assess the motor performance and the users' ability to learn such a task. The evaluation was based on the interpretation of the metrics derived from Fitts' law. Ten children aged between 6 and 8 participated in this study. Participants performed a series of pre- and post-training tests for both input devices. After the experiments, data were analyzed and statistically compared. The results show that Fitts' law can be used to detect changes in the learning process and assess the level of psychomotor development (by comparing the performance of adults and children). In addition, meaningful differences between the fine motor control (hand) and the gross motor control (head) were found by comparing the results of the interaction using the two devices. These findings suggest that Fitts' law metrics offer a reliable and objective way of measuring the progress of physical training or therapy.

In this article children's musical improvisation is investigated through the "reflexive interaction" paradigm. We used a particular system, the MIROR-Impro, implemented in the framework of the MIROR project (EC-FP7), which is able to reply to the child playing a keyboard by a "reflexive" output, mirroring (with repetitions and variations) her/his inputs. The study was conducted in a public primary school, with 47 children, aged 6-7. The experimental design used the convergence procedure, based on three sample groups allowing us to verify if the reflexive interaction using the MIROR-Impro is necessary and/or sufficient to improve the children's abilities to improvise. The following conditions were used as independent variables: to play only the keyboard, the keyboard with the MIROR-Impro but with not-reflexive reply, the keyboard with the MIROR-Impro with reflexive reply. As dependent variables we estimated the children's ability to improvise in solos, and in duets. Each child carried out a training program consisting of 5 weekly individual 12 min sessions. The control group played the complete package of independent variables; Experimental Group 1 played the keyboard and the keyboard with the MIROR-Impro with not-reflexive reply; Experimental Group 2 played only the keyboard with the reflexive system. One week after, the children were asked to improvise a musical piece on the keyboard alone (Solo task), and in pairs with a friend (Duet task). Three independent judges assessed the Solo and the Duet tasks by means of a grid based on the TAI-Test for Ability to Improvise rating scale. The EG2, which trained only with the reflexive system, reached the highest average results and the difference with EG1, which did not used the reflexive system, is statistically significant when the children improvise in a duet. The results indicate that in the sample of participants the reflexive interaction alone could be sufficient to increase the improvisational skills, and necessary when they improvise in duets. However, these results are in general not statistically significant. The correlation between Reflexive Interaction and the ability to improvise is statistically significant. The results are discussed on the light of the recent literature in neuroscience and music education.