KidTech: The Next Generation of Compelling and Safe Digital Products

The pandemic necessitated a change in some of our usual methodologies and, as it was still important to conduct qualitative research for the depth of learnings, we used more online tools than in the past. We were concerned this would result in less depth and less impactful learnings, but we found this was not the case.

Whenever our research includes child participation, we work with trusted child and youth research partners (agencies and contractors) to coordinate the work and provide the relevant sample and reporting. Our experienced in-house insights team sets out the objectives, designs the project, and oversees delivery.

For the Rukkaz project, we had to navigate the challenge of international research during the first lockdown of 2020. We used a provider who was adept at managing online communities to create an engaging environment in which the respondents actively participated. We were able to observe and contribute questions in real time throughout the process, which meant we could react to their feedback and pivot our thinking as the project progressed.

Our sample was recruited by specialist qualitative recruiters in the US to find the right children for our project in terms of age, gender, and their relevance to the project, i.e., they were all gamers. The recruiter managed the process of obtaining consent from participants and their parents, ensuring everything adhered to the MRS Code of Conduct and the privacy requirements of GDPR-K and COPPA.

We used an online platform that allows the creation of a closed online space for a moderator and respondents to communicate. We set it up so kids could contribute their ideas via text, image uploads, and video diary entries. Over 10 days, the community was engaged by a skilled moderator to ensure our objectives were met. In part, the moderator’s role was to ensure the project is not led by our own biases, i.e., influenced by our pre- conceived ideas of what the outcome would be, which can happen when a development team works on their own projects. Finding the right moderator was essential, as talking to kids and young people requires a specialist skill set to create the right rapport and trust. Moderators who work for a specialist youth research agency and who have experience with this audience will be able to understand the nuances of child development and youth / child culture, both of which are essential to interpreting responses meaningfully.

The platform allowed participant interaction when needed, so children could collaborate and build on our ideas by answering questions both individually and as a group. Interestingly, this enabled the research team to obtain high-quality individual opinions, sometimes a key challenge of conducting qualitative research with children who can be susceptible to agreeing with dominant respondents in live interview settings.

Although we initially intended the project to be primarily based on face-to-face qualitative research, we actually found that the online methodology had numerous benefits, including obtaining single and collaborative viewpoints, the ability to interact with the target group across platforms they are familiar with, avoiding respondent or moderator bias and leading questions, reducing respondent fatigue (as each daily interaction was only 30 mins in length), and increasing involvement from us as a stakeholder team. Although there is less spontaneity in online interactions, we were delighted by the depth of learning we achieved with this methodology. We would certainly use online methodologies in the future as part of our research tool kit.

The key challenges of child participation centre on three elements: consent, data privacy, and expertise. The compliance requirements are complex and have potentially damaging consequences if not handled properly; this can be a barrier to engaging children in a meaningful way.

Overcoming the challenges is mainly a case of being aware of the regulations governing research methodologies and data privacy (either in-house or via specialist external advisers) and finding the right partner who can navigate the complexities of compliance in market research, who knows how to talk to children in their own language and can translate their responses into actionable learnings.