Just what is "Interaction Design for Children"?

Today I'm here in Evanston, Ill., where Northwestern University is hosting an international conference for about 150 people who work in a field called "interaction design for children."

Just what does that mean? I wondered myself, and I'm not 100 percent sure even today. But from what I gather, it's an approach to designing a product (software program, toy, whatever) that gives high value to the way a user will interact with it.

As designer, consultant and entrepreneur Nathan Shedoff once wrote, interaction design can go by other names too, like information design, instructional design, or "just plain common sense."

This conference -- Interaction Design for Children 2008 -- puts the emphasis on how designers can create toys, software, games, Web sites and tools for children that take into account their motor skills, their cognitive skills, their desires, their experiences, their potential for using it in ways that adults may not expect.

Justine Cassell, a Northwestern professor who is internationally known for her work on children and technology, is leading the conference. (I'm looking forward to picking her brain about new projects in her Center for Technology & Social Behavior.)