TUI Design Considerations for supporting young children's magnitude understanding

In this dissertation, I present my doctoral research on forming tangible user interface (TUI) design considerations for supporting young children's (ages 3 to 5) magnitude understanding. My work resides in the child-computer interaction (CCI) field that aims to develop interactive technologies for children to support their developmental processes. Previous CCI research neglected magnitude understanding (i.e., comparing amounts as 'more-less'), a foundational math ability that influences later academic achievements. Young children's magnitude understanding is influenced by the physical properties of objects (e.g., spatial arrangement, volume), suggesting that an object-based practice may be beneficial. In line with these, we investigated how TUIs, which embed computational capacity in physical objects and/or surroundings, may support young children's magnitude understanding. We followed research through design methodology, where we used artifacts to probe and reframe the research and embodied the learnings in the form of a final conceptual prototype called 'Storibles.' The key contributions of this thesis are: (i) Insights into how to support magnitude understanding, (ii) Design considerations for TUIs on magnitude understanding, (iii) TUI design concepts and prototypes on magnitude understanding, and (iv) Design knowledge informing TUIs for young children's cognitive development. Overall, my work may inspire researchers and practitioners to build tangible interfaces using an iterative and hands-on route with children to inspire interfaces beyond our adult mind's initial conception. This work leads to building TUIs in children's routines to support magnitude understanding and other related fields like spatial understanding.