Towards a participative approach for adapting multimodal digital books for deaf and hard of hearing people

Participatory designs for the development of technologies have advanced considerably to incorporate children in the process of design and development. However, significant challenges remain for developers, specially regarding levels of continuous involvement by children, communication aspects with young children and the incorporation of children from minorities. In the present article the results of a systematized experience for adapting three multimodal digital books for deaf and hard of hearing (D/HH) children are presented and discussed. Four phases and corresponding methods are described. Level of involvement, impact of participation in development and relations between children and adults are presented and analyzed considering how participation changes depending on the phase, activities and project progress and constrains. Results are discussed using the concepts of epistemology, values of the research team, results and stakeholders.