Playful Accessories: Design Process of Two Objects to Encourage Free-play Experiences

In this paper we describe the design process of two playful accessories for children to play anywhere and anytime. We explain ethnographic phase to define a General Design Concept to design objects to encouraging free-play. We describe the two interactive designs emerged from this concept and the preliminary results of user’s evaluation. The General Design Concept propose the use of playful accessories for children; simple interaction systems embedded in every day accessories, to increase their opportunities to take advantage of face to face interactions for free play and practice social skills. Preliminary user’s experiences describe how Playful Accessories encourages free-play.