Anastasia
Kuzminykh,
PhD
candidate
David
R.
Cheriton
School
of
Computer
Science
While technologies exist that are either marketed for or can be adapted to the monitoring of toddlers and school-age children, parents' perspectives on these technologies have received only limited attention.
This talk explores the information that parents seek about their children, parents' underlying motivations for seeking this information, parents' use of this information, and the potential role that technology can play in providing this information. Through triangulation of data from experience sampling, semi-structured interviews, and Internet-based ethnography (netnography), we explore the structure of parents information needs (everyday activities, health information, school information, and social-emotional information) and show how this information is being used to adjust or inform behaviour. We argue that parents' information needs should be viewed as contextual information and coupled with intended use when designing information systems for parent-child dyadic relationship.