For this project the goal was to obtain user insights about the perspectives of children about rebellion in play. After conducting a literature study it was found that being rebellious is beneficial for children, because it allows them to escape from the adult world. This leads to developing multiple capabilities like self-reliance, co-operation, problem solving and interpersonal skills (Gielen and van Leeuwen, 2013). The literature review ended with two research questions about rebellion in play and multiple sub research questions. The main questions are: How do children perceive rebellion and rebellion in play? How do children perceive rules and rules within play? Research method: Co-research To obtain user insights, a novel method called co-research was used. Co-research is a method in which the user takes the role of researcher, researching his or her peers. This might lead to rich contextual insights (van Doorn, 2013). The previous described research questions were translated to interview questions for children, in order to obtain insights about rebellion in play. After, co-research was conducted with two groups of five children. During three sessions, the children were trained in conducting interviews and conducted the actual interviews with their peers. The co-research sessions also served as a case study to evaluate provisional guidelines about conducting research. This can be found at the end of the report. All the sessions and interviews were transcribed and analyzed. Interesting quotes were selected and interpreted by a group of five industrial design students. This led to the following insights about rebellion in play. The transcripts of the co-research sessions and the interviews were taken to the next phase of the project: Analysis Analysis It was found that children have clear motivations to act rebellious. The rebellious acts have certain consequences, but children tend to avoid these consequences. In general they try to seek their personal limit of acting rebellious, without having to deal with the consequences. Motivation to act rebellious Children have several motivations to act rebellious: personal reputation, competition, revenge and inner urge. Different types of rebellious children could be identified, which have different motivations to act rebellious or not (personal reputation). For instance, The little shy girl, would not act rebellious on a regular base, because she is scared of the consequences. If she acts rebellious, she would do it to experience how it feels so she can talk along with her friends. The popular guy acts rebellious, to maintain his popular reputation. He will make fun of others and pretend to be the best in everything. The bad boy wants to look tough and therefore acts rebellious openly. The second motivation is about competition: they rebel because they want to win a game. The third motivation: inner urges, is about feeling the urge to act rebellious, just because a certain act is forbidden. Sometimes children act rebellious just for fun or for example after a long time of conforming behavior. The last motivation is about revenge: you act rebellious because you are angry with someone. What is rebellion? During the co-research sessions it was found that children perceive rebellion as fun. Rebellious behavior can be divided in different categories: doing bad things secretly, bullying, cheating, demolishing and physically hurting. Rebellion was perceived as something nice, especially when they are able to avoid the consequences like punishment. Consequences of rebellious behavior While being rebellious in the attendance of some adult, you will get punished for your behavior, while in the attendance of other children; there are multiple possible reactions, depending on the character of the child. Some children get angry, some children have to cry while get cheated on, because they find it unfair and other children have to laugh when someone cheats. It seems that cheating is not a big issue, because after some minutes the game continues again. There is interplay between rebellious behavior and the consequences: avoiding the consequences of rebellious behavior. This friction field seems to be the most interesting for the children. They want to act rebellious, find their personal limit of rebellious behavior, but avoid the consequences. Limits of rebellion This leads to the limit of rebellious behavior; you should not hurt others, force others, or demolish others’ properties. There is a rule, which all the children agreed on: Treat others the way you want to be treated yourself. In general, children like to play without parents, because this enables them to do what they want. The rules of behavior are clear between peers. If there are problems, mostly they are able to solve these themselves. The research findings were represented in a research scheme (figure 2 in this report). This scheme together with the interaction vision could be used as the starting point for designing. Applying the research scheme (figure 2 in this report). Several categories of rebellious behavior were described in the scheme with corresponding rebellious actions. These actions can be used as the starting point of a brainstorm session, because those are the things that children perceive as rebellious. When an idea is born, it is important to look at the motivations in the scheme. Children have different motivations to act rebellious. These motivations could be used as user cues in your design in order to trigger the children to act rebellious. The rebellious actions lead to several consequences, which children tend to avoid. It is important to look at the consequences of your design: what are the consequences of being rebellious and which of the consequences should be removed/remained? Rebellious behavior leads to four kinds of consequences: 1. A conflict with your inner self: the dilemma to act rebellious or not. 2. A conflict with a peer - When being rebellious against a person, a conflict between those two might arise. 3. A group conflict - when being rebellious and the group results suffer from it, a group conflict might arise. 4. A conflict with the outer world - another possibility is that people who are not directly participating in your environment, get in a conflict with you about your behaviour. For example: parents, teachers or a different group of children not participating the game. When designing, it is important to question yourself what kind of conflict you want to trigger with your design. Based on this scheme, multiple ideas and three concepts were generated. The concept serve as an illustration of how to use the research scheme and as an inspiration to designers. Example of concept As an illustration of how to use this scheme, three concepts were generated. One of the concepts will shortly be described below. Moving base: Moving base is a concept based on the conventional game “hide and seek”. In hide and seek there is a base, where the seeker has to tag someone he/she found or were the hiders can set themselves free. In this concept there are five bases instead of one. During the game, the hiders can change the location of the active base. In the conventional game “hide and seek” it was perceived as cheating to hide close to the base or when the seeker was staying close to the base. By playing ‘moving base’, children are being rebellious against the rules of the conventional game. The value of this game lies in the fact that children can use certain strategies to win the game, for example by moving the base closer to them. Also they can betray their opponents by revealing their spot or ruining their strategy. Children are being rebellious against their peers, which might result in conflicts with peers or group conflicts. Evaluation of designing for rebellion in play After using the scheme to generate concepts, an evaluation of designing for rebellion in play was done. Is it possible to design rebellious games or playgrounds? Once you design something, that facilitates rebellious behaviour, it might not be rebellious anymore, because you approve it. On the other hand, when forbidding things and setting up clear rules which children might break, it becomes too obvious and becomes conforming soon enough as well. On conclusion, when designing for rebellion, try to design subtle cues that provide children with the opportunity to rebel. The value of rebellious behaviour might lie in the interaction between children, which is the result of rebellious behaviour. This interaction has to do with the four types of conflict described earlier (Confict with inner self, with a peer, group conflict and with the outer world). When designing, try to trigger these kinds of conflicts, based on the motivations named in the scheme. Use the acts of rebellious behaviour as an inspiration of what kind of rebellious things to design, but try to not literally translate them into ideas. After the research phase, it was concluded that there is a friction field for children in the scheme: seeking their personal limit of rebellious behaviour without having to deal with the consequences. At the end of this project, it can be concluded that the designer should not focus on this friction field, because when focusing on removing the consequences the rebellious feeling might vanish. Therefore, the designer should focus on the friction field: Consequences and avoiding the consequences. New vision This lead to a new vision for designing for rebel in play: “The playground should trigger conflicts by giving children options to experience the dilemma between being rebellious and conform.”