Hedef Kitle: Adults
İçerik Dili: Abstract
Özet:
Tahmini Okuma Süresi: 12 dakika
We have been working on some changes to the Young Voices website for a while. As BİLGİ Child Studies Unit, we have been collaborating with the Child Advisory Team for a while to make the www.gencsesler.org website understandable for all 9 years old and above children. We decided to write this article to share our experience with those who are interested in similar efforts. We have summarized what we would like to share in 7 questions. In this article which is describing the process and our work, we have also included the views of the Child Advisory Team, with whom we have been working for a long time.
Why did we start to design the website for age 9+?
Ayşegül Kanal: There are a few important points on which this idea is based. One of them is the right of children to have access to accurate and reliable information appropriate to their age (Article 17), which is one of the rights stated in the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child. This right is very important for children to implement their right to participate. This is because children need to have access to age-appropriate information in order to develop their own opinions on an issue. The Young Voices Project is a project where we work on children’s right to participate. Within the scope of the project, we work with children and adults to raise awareness about child participation. While providing information, we aimed to make the information accessible to everyone, rather than posting the contents we created for children in a different place on the website. We found it important for children to self-select which contents they would be interested in. Long and boring texts can be challenging for adults as well. Contents prepared for ages 9+ is more accessible and understandable for everyone.
Is there a distinction between “child-friendly” and “for ages 9+”?
Gözde Durmuş: In the field of child rights, the term “child-friendly” is commonly used. Additionally, terms such as “disabled-friendly” and “women-friendly” are used. We can simply say that this term is used to transform a discourse originally designed for “adult, male, and able-bodied” individuals into the one that includes excluded groups. In the case of children, there is another point; If a text or activity designed by adults is not appropriate for children’s age and their developmental level, children cannot make the content “child-friendly”. Mostly adults produce “child-friendly” contents. Of course, children are included in the process, but the decision on how to summarize that text is taken by an adult, in essence, the starting point is the adult. That’s why, instead of creating a content for adults and then adapting it to children, this time we asked the question “Could we create it for everyone from the beginning?” Since we could not overcome basic literacy requirement, we had a limit of 9+. We have been thinking for a while about how to produce content in the form of 9+ or 12+ or 15+ instead of “child-friendly.” We are still not sure if producing such content is enough to overcome the contradiction mentioned above. Through this website, we aim to actualize this, to try it out, and to open it up for discussion with the concerned people in the field. As we started to write 9+ content, we found it quite difficult. If it is not possible to move to this quickly, of course we should continue to produce special versions and sections for children, just being aware that children are not a homogeneous group and which children we mean when we say for children.
How did we plan the process? What did we do?
Cem Demirayak: Now when I look back, between August 2021 and December 2021, eight of our online meetings with the Child Advisory Team focused on talking about the website. So it is quite a long process. That’s why I would like to explain the process step by step.
The first step was to think and plan about how we could run the process by getting opinions from children. We tried to adapt our planning (frequency of meetings, team dynamics, creating a meeting flow, communication with the team, etc.) to the features of the advisory team. When we got to the stage of getting opinions at our first meeting, we shared our desire to make the website suitable for everyone with the advisory team. We explained the Young Voices Project and its goals. We showed the project’s website which is designed for adults before. We asked the team as “How should a website design be to appeal to children?” The children said that they preferred simpler, shorter texts instead of long and information-overloading texts containing difficult-to-understand concepts. They also gave some ideas about the website design. Their advices were basically commoned on 4 points: easy and comfortable to use, fun, informative and safe website. These were the points that the advisory team emphasized. We tried to elaborate on these points a bit more in detail.
Later then, it was time to show the children the sample site designs we had prepared based on their advices. At this point, the advisory team gave feedbacks on those designs. They expressed their opinions about what they found useful and what they did not find useful. In this process, we were not able to realize some of their advices and we explicitly discussed the problem with the children by explaning the reasons. After the details of the design were finalized, we took their opinions on whether the texts on the website were suitable for ages 9+. We discussed how to write more understandable content. The children suggested that we should avoid to placing long texts and using too many terms. We started to write the articles on the website in this way as much as possible. We completed the website with its new design and content. But of course, the website is still open to improvement. We will meet again with the children in the advisory team to talk about the final version of the website.
How did this process go for the child advisory team? What was the most important thing they remembered and emphasized during this process?
We asked the children in the advisory team how the process was going for them and what they remembered most about it. Arin stated that the most important thing for him was “how a website is built and how people’s opinions are reflected”. For Elif A., one of the most important things was that “although the site was made by adults, it was addressed to children in a very good way”. Güneş emphasized that it was important that it was a fun site. Elif E. expressed that she had fun during the process and that it felt good for her to be able to express her ideas freely and comfortably. Ayaz said that during the process they thought about how children could use the website more efficiently.
What should be kept in mind when making a site that children can understand and like?
The children in the advisory team expressed their views on what should be considered when creating a site that children can understand and like. They told us how the content should be and what kind of design should be done so that the children don’t get bored. About the content, Arin pointed out that “children’s interests should be taken into consideration” and Bilge Mira emphasized the need to pay attention to “what is being told.” Doğa added that “age-appropriate content” should be produced. Some of the participants also expressed their opinions about the design. Elif A. said that “the text should be written in large font size and a colorful theme should be used.” Güneş also underlined that “it should not be boring.” Elif E. mentioned “the importance of the design being fun, colorful and based on children’s imagination.” Doğa stated that “short and clear paragraphs, colorful writings, attention-grabbing photographs, and fun texts can be better for children.”
What were our challenges? What suggestions can we make for those who are interested in doing a similar work?
Gökçe Uysal: Maybe we can divide this into two. First, I can talk about the difficulties of the experience of preparing a website for the age 9+ group. There are also the difficulties we face while conducting such a process with children. If we consider the experience of designing an understandable website for 9+, we had to think about how to find a balance in order to try to appeal to both children and adults. Because while creating short content to attract the attention of children, adults would have difficulty accessing the detailed information they demanded. Would children be interested in what we write? Would we be overwhelming children with information? We thought about how we could solve this problem. We realized that we were writing texts full of too much information and detail, which could be boring, due to the concern of being easily understood in the content we wrote for children. We searched for solutions to this problem. It was difficult for us to try to write concepts in an understandable way, to simplify and shorten the content.
Ayşegül Kanal: I can summarize the challenges we encountered while carrying out the process with the children as follows: It was a new experience for us as well as for the children, which made it difficult for us in the process. When we say “children”, we are not talking about a homogeneous group. Each of them has different interests and needs. There were challenges arising from this. The design of the website is a technical process. Children are not directly in contact with the technical team carrying out this process. We were in a mediator position to share the opinions we received from the children with the people who designed the website. We can count this position as another challenge. Since we were conducting this process through online platform, it was challenging to stay still in front of the screen and keep the children’s attention. Children’s schedules due to school and homework had an impact on the duration and frequency of our meetings. We sometimes had difficulties.
Gökçe Uysal: The other most important challenge is the accessibility for everyone. While criticizing our adulthood, we also confronted our “conformist” sides at the same time. In this process, we met Erişilebilir Her Şey and we hope to work more intensively with them and make the website even more accessible. The question of “mother tongue” is also one of the things we consider in terms of accessibility. We have a long way to go in this regard. But it was good to learn that the more you try to be more inclusive, the more you become aware of the needs of all groups and the more you develop. Our tips for those who are interested in organizing similar activities can be as follows:
-Our previous experience of working with children made the process much easier. These experiences can be beneficial.
-It is very important to be aware of the limitations in the process of participation with children and try to increase participation gradually by learning more.
-Especially if the project will be conducted online, supplementary studies can be planned to support children’s group dynamics.
-It is very important to keep the methods of getting opinions from children as diverse as possible so that each child can express themselves and enjoy the process.
-It is necessary to develop common strategies to satisfy different needs and to be creative.
-Being clear and going step by step not only helps children to understand more easily but also makes it easier for us.
-If we aim for everyone to have knowledge about children’s rights and child participation, we definitely need to give thought to the concepts we use.
-It is very important that we face our “adult” selves and become aware of ourselves.
Perhaps most importantly, don’t be afraid to try. The aim is to learn together and to carry out the discussion with the relevant people. It is very relaxing to be aware of this and to move forward by accepting it.
Will we continue to develop contents for ages 9+? What is our plan?
Gözde Durmuş: It is very important for us to open the subject to discussion with this study. What can be done to provide information that children can understand instead of “child-friendly” section? On which subjects should we design two sections, one for children and one for adults? We would like to discuss and learn together. We believe that this study can be supportive for those who would like to work on this issue and to discuss it. We intend to improve this work by receiving feedback from children and adults, coming together with people in the field, to develop our own capacities and to continue working on this issue. We welcome all feedbacks and contributions.
We think that the target audience of this article is adults. It was a long article, we cannot actually say that it is targeted at the age 9+. We have thought a long time about what we can do in such situations. While posting such content, we started to include a summary section for 9-15 ages. In this summary section, we state what the content is about and what we are saying to adults. We were able to find such a solution. Maybe this is where we can start thinking and discussing. Regarding the suggestion of the children’s advisory team, you can find a contact form on the website in order for children and adults to share their feedbacks and comments on the website with us. You can write to us by using this form.
