Enabling people to lower barriers with a codesign prototyping approach: sex education for upper-elementary students at home

Abstract

Through using prototyping as a communication medium in co-design, disparate participants may find common ground on how to deal with complex issues. Due to Korea's Confucian cultural society, there is a lack of conversation about sex between parents and children at home. Therefore, it is necessary to find a way to construct an atmosphere at home to talk about sensitive issues, like sex, especially through co-design. We conducted two co-design workshops by using prototyping as a ` Make Tools' medium: The first prototyping was for a storytelling booklet and the second one was for a board game, along with parents' guidelines. We found hindrances coming from parents in both workshops, showing parents' interventions and concerns over this sensitive topic, hindering children moving on with the sessions. However, insights into overcoming these limitations identify as follows. 1) Children's empowerment over parental interventions and 2) finding common ground to lower barriers among participants.