Children and young people’s desire to read is rapidly decreasing. This of course cause worries for many parents, school teachers, librarians and also the Danish Minister of Education.

Since 2021, the Social Design Unit has been involved in the project “Læselyst og Læserum” –  a project which investigates whether design interventions and artistic experimentation can inspire children to read more out of pleasure. Together with Kolding libraries, the Design School Kolding, 8 primary schools in Kolding Municipality and 19 designers and artists, the Social Design unit collaborated with children and librarians in order to codesign new reading experiences and spaces for reading. This has resulted in 10 prototypes which have been tested and evaluated by children aged 9-14 and an Inspiration Catalogue, which summarizes the process of designing with and for children.

Building on our expertise within child-centered research, for this project we have developed specific playful evaluation tools to let children themselves voice their experiences and opinions of the prototypes.

The Inspiration Catalogue can be requested from the public or SDU library or downloaded here.