Youth Web Spaces: Designing Interfaces as if Youth Mattered

Abstract

Youth is a period of rapid emotional, physical and intellectual change, where young people progress from being dependent children to independent adults. Young people who are unable to make this transition smoothly can face significant difficulties in both the short and long term. One way to support this transition is to create an environment that enables youth to be well supported through the provision of information and the creation of a community where youth feel empowered to collaborate with their peers as well as decision makers and legislators. This article focuses on exploring the use of the Internet by young people and how youth well-being can be improved through the design of community oriented youth-friendly web spaces. This article begins with a definition of youth well-being and what this means in the context of the web. We propose key requirements for the design of youth web spaces that may result in their well-being. These conceptual requirements then motivate us to propose interface design requirements for youth web spaces. Furthermore, we propose a framework that can guide the design and implementation of community oriented youth web spaces.