Poster: Learn to Love My Grandchild Design-with-the-User

Abstract

This paper is part of a PhD study. Parents and caregivers are the first teachers of young children; and therefore, play a crucial role in transforming education in the early years. The majority of South African parents are living in poverty, and because of their circumstances, they struggle to build relationships with their children. How to offer support programmes to parents living in poverty, at scale and in an affordable way, remains elusive. ‘Design-with-the user’ approach suggests building and developing programmes with the user throughout the project cycle. To answer the research question of who is the receiver of the message, I zoom into the life of one of the case study participants and specifically, what is the story encompassing her characteristics, needs and challenges. The results show that m-learning programmes designed and implemented in other countries cannot just be transferred into a new local context without adaptation and considering designing with the user.