SCENIC: A Location-based System to Foster Cognitive Development in Children During Car Rides

Car-riding is common for children in modern life, and given the repetitive nature of daily commutes, they often feel bored, which in turn leads them to rely on electronic devices for entertainment. Meanwhile, the rich and rapidly changing scenery outside the car naturally attracts children's curiosity, providing abundant resources for cognitive development. Our formative study reveals that parents' support during car rides is often fleeting, as accompanying adults may struggle to consistently provide effective guidance to nurture children's innate curiosity. Therefore, we propose SCENIC, an interactive system that guides children aged 6-11 to better perceive the external environment through location-based cognitive development strategies. Specifically, we built upon the experiential approaches used by parents, culminating in the formulation of six cognitive development strategies integrated into SCENIC. Additionally, considering the repetitive nature of car commutes, SCENIC incorporates features of dynamic POI selection and journey gallery generation to improve children's engagement. We evaluated the quality of SCENIC's generated content (N=21) and conducted an in-situ user evaluation involving seven families and ten children. Study findings suggest that SCENIC can enhance the car riding experience for children and help them better perceive the external environment through cognitive development strategies.

• Applied computing → Computer-assisted instruction; • Human-centered computing → Ubiquitous and mobile computing systems and tools; User studies.