PhotoThings: Designing child-friendly ways into personal photo archives

Thomas Dylan

doi:10.1145/3773077.3811934

PhotoThings: Designing child-friendly ways into personal photo archives

Thomas Dylan

School of Design Arts and Creative Industries

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceeding › Conference contribution › peer-review

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Abstract

Young children’s lives are documented through vast numbers of digital photos, yet these images are often dispersed across devices in ways that offer little structure for reminiscence or understanding life story. For children whose experiences span multiple caregivers or shifting relationships, developmentally meaningful access to photos is especially important. This pictorial explores how child-friendly structures for navigating and displaying photos might support such understanding. Through autobiographical Research through Design with my five-year-old daughter, I developed PhotoThings—a set of physical–digital artefacts connected to a child-owned archive. The work foregrounds sensitising concepts including: increasing ownership, playfulness and performativity, self-direction, comprehensible structures, and narrative anchors, offering directions for design in this space

Original language	English
Title of host publication	IDC '26: Proceedings of the 25th Interaction Design and Children Conference
Place of Publication	New York, US
Publisher	ACM
ISBN (Print)	9798400722837
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1145/3773077.3811934
Publication status	Published - 22 Jun 2026
Event	IDC 2026: 25th Interaction Design and Children Conference - Brighton, United Kingdom Duration: 22 Jun 2026 → 25 Jun 2026 Conference number: 25 https://idc.acm.org/2026/

Conference

Conference	IDC 2026: 25th Interaction Design and Children Conference
Abbreviated title	IDC '26
Country/Territory	United Kingdom
City	Brighton
Period	22/06/26 → 25/06/26
Internet address	https://idc.acm.org/2026/

Keywords

Research through Design
Photographs
Children
Tangible Interaction

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10.1145/3773077.3811934Licence: CC BY

PhotoThings_ThomasDylan_IDC_2026Final published version, 8.89 MBLicence: CC BY

Cite this

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title = "PhotoThings: Designing child-friendly ways into personal photo archives",

abstract = "Young children{\textquoteright}s lives are documented through vast numbers of digital photos, yet these images are often dispersed across devices in ways that offer little structure for reminiscence or understanding life story. For children whose experiences span multiple caregivers or shifting relationships, developmentally meaningful access to photos is especially important. This pictorial explores how child-friendly structures for navigating and displaying photos might support such understanding. Through autobiographical Research through Design with my five-year-old daughter, I developed PhotoThings—a set of physical–digital artefacts connected to a child-owned archive. The work foregrounds sensitising concepts including: increasing ownership, playfulness and performativity, self-direction, comprehensible structures, and narrative anchors, offering directions for design in this space",

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AB - Young children’s lives are documented through vast numbers of digital photos, yet these images are often dispersed across devices in ways that offer little structure for reminiscence or understanding life story. For children whose experiences span multiple caregivers or shifting relationships, developmentally meaningful access to photos is especially important. This pictorial explores how child-friendly structures for navigating and displaying photos might support such understanding. Through autobiographical Research through Design with my five-year-old daughter, I developed PhotoThings—a set of physical–digital artefacts connected to a child-owned archive. The work foregrounds sensitising concepts including: increasing ownership, playfulness and performativity, self-direction, comprehensible structures, and narrative anchors, offering directions for design in this space

KW - Research through Design

KW - Photographs

KW - Children

KW - Tangible Interaction

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PB - ACM

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Y2 - 22 June 2026 through 25 June 2026

ER -

PhotoThings: Designing child-friendly ways into personal photo archives

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