Abstract
Today, children's use of digital devices is increasing and traditional parent-centered control is revealing their limitations. Nevertheless, little research has been done to find out alternative but better means in terms of user experience. The study aims to explore digital mediation strategies between parents and children to support an ideal parenting style: democratic parenting. A co-design workshop with 9 parent-child pairs (aged 7-12) was conducted to understand real-life experiences and identifying insights. Subsequently, a workshop with 8 UX/HCI designers was held to translate these insights into design strategies. Through thematic analysis, six key insights for digital mediation with democratic parenting were derived: autonomy support, indirect involvement, mutual negotiation, family practice, emotional connection, and information sharing. Using a 2D matrix combining these insights with a theoretical framework of parental behavior, three design strategies were proposed: 1) autonomy- supportive coaching, 2) horizontal empowerment, and 3) provision of expanded contextual information. This study contributes to expanding the perspective of digital parenting by showing how parents and children can co-create mediation strategies based on open communication and critical thinking. It offers theoretical and practical implications for HCI, UX design, and digital parenting research.
Keywords
Behavioral Change; Smart Device Addiction; Parental Control; Digital Parenting; Digital
DOI
https://doi.org/10.21606/iasdr.2025.837
Citation
Kang, Y., Kim, H.,and Kim, C.(2025) Can Digital Parenting Services Be More ‘Democratic’? Exploring Parent-child Digital Mediation Strategies through Co-design workshops, in Chang, C.-Y., and Hsu, Y. (eds.), IASDR 2025: Design Next, 02-05 December, Taiwan. https://doi.org/10.21606/iasdr.2025.837
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License
Conference Track
Track 6 - Co-creation
Can Digital Parenting Services Be More ‘Democratic’? Exploring Parent-child Digital Mediation Strategies through Co-design workshops
Today, children's use of digital devices is increasing and traditional parent-centered control is revealing their limitations. Nevertheless, little research has been done to find out alternative but better means in terms of user experience. The study aims to explore digital mediation strategies between parents and children to support an ideal parenting style: democratic parenting. A co-design workshop with 9 parent-child pairs (aged 7-12) was conducted to understand real-life experiences and identifying insights. Subsequently, a workshop with 8 UX/HCI designers was held to translate these insights into design strategies. Through thematic analysis, six key insights for digital mediation with democratic parenting were derived: autonomy support, indirect involvement, mutual negotiation, family practice, emotional connection, and information sharing. Using a 2D matrix combining these insights with a theoretical framework of parental behavior, three design strategies were proposed: 1) autonomy- supportive coaching, 2) horizontal empowerment, and 3) provision of expanded contextual information. This study contributes to expanding the perspective of digital parenting by showing how parents and children can co-create mediation strategies based on open communication and critical thinking. It offers theoretical and practical implications for HCI, UX design, and digital parenting research.