This paper was submitted at the IDC2005 in Boulder, Colorado. The paper - Mission from Mars - A Method for Exploring User Requirements for Children in a Narrative Space - describes "the mission from mars" - a workshop method designed and developed to gather user requirements for a digital school bag by establishing a shared narrative space between children and researchers. The paper is written by Christian Dindler, Eva Eriksson, Ole Sejer Iversen, Martin Ludvigsen and I.

Abstract
In this paper a particular design method is propagated as a supplement to existing descriptive approaches to current practice studies especially suitable for gathering requirements for the design of children’s technology. The Mission from Mars method was applied during the design of an electronic school bag (eBag). The three-hour collaborative session provides a first-hand insight into children’s practice in a fun and intriguing way. The method is proposed as a supplement to existing descriptive design methods for interaction design and children.

Read the entire paper in pdf here

See a video from the workshop here