Key issues for the successful design of an intelligent, interactive playground

Abstract

An Intelligent Playground is an environment with interactive objects that, using advanced technology such as sensors and actuators, react to the interaction with the children and actively encourage children to play. Thus, an intelligent playground stimulates children to move and play together. In this way, it provides for a healthy alternative for popular pastimes such as computer games and television. We propose a design research agenda for Intelligent Playgrounds, identifying key issues regarding the design of these playgrounds: social interaction, simplicity, challenge, goals and feedback. We illustrate these issues by referring extensively to related work in this area. In addition, we present our design approach, initial findings and future plans on the basis of two case studies of new intelligent playground concepts.