Designing Methods Towards Resilience: A Critical Reflection on Co-Designing Technology with Families During Early COVID-19

Abstract

In the reactive environment of adjusting to remote learning and life during COVID-19 pandemic in the United States, families had few opportunities to collaborate, play, and imagine better futures. Using family resilience theory as a guiding framework, we describe a study of 30 US-based families who participated in a ten-week study using the Asynchronous Remote Communities (ARC) method between April and July 2020. In this paper, we analyze the affordances of co-design activities for envisioning solutions to family needs during the pandemic and share concerns as well as future directions for designing methods for resilience. Our findings suggest the asynchronous, creative collaboration through playful and open-ended prompts in our study lays the groundwork for cultivating family resilience, and we identify gaps in methods for sustained resiliency. We suggest modifications for applying the ARC method with educational communities and reflect on family engagement for relational commons.