JMIR Publications

ABSTRACT

Indoor air pollution is harmful to everybody, but children are of particular concern because they are more vulnerable to its adverse health effects from air pollutants. However, while mobile technology is increasingly being designed to support occupants’ monitoring and improvement of air quality indoors, little attention has been paid to its use by and for children. Previously, we created inAirKids, a child-friendly device to promote children’s engagement with monitoring indoor air quality through a participatory design process. This paper investigates how inAirKids affects children’s understanding of and engagement with indoor air quality through a longitudinal field deployment study. We deployed inAirKids in the homes of nine children aged 6 and 7 and investigated their use for up to sixteen weeks by conducting semi-structured, bi-weekly interviews. Results show that participants promptly engaged with inAirKids but quickly lost interest in it due to the lack of interactive factors to sustain engagement. Besides, we identified two design considerations that can foster children’s sustained engagement with monitoring indoor air quality: Design interactivity for engaging in continuity and Incorporate hands-on activities as part of IAQ monitoring for experiential learning. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first longitudinal field deployment to investigate how to engage children in monitoring indoor air quality.