Unicef pushes RITEC framework to put child well-being into game design
by Jude Toyat · Borneo Post OnlineKUCHING (Aug 20): The United Nations Children’s Fund (Unicef) is encouraging game developers to use its Responsible Innovation in Technology for Children (RITEC) framework to put children’s well-being at the heart of the design process.
Unicef Child Online Protection Specialist Josianne Galea Baron said the initiative aimed to help developers move beyond identifying risks and harms associated with children’s gaming experiences.
Instead, she said RITEC encouraged the industry to consider how well-designed games could actively contribute to positive outcomes for children.
“The whole premise for RITEC was inspired by the fact that there’s a lot of research and attention very rightly going into understanding the risks and harms associated with children’s online game experiences.
“But we wanted to really ask and figure out, if games are designed well, how can they help children to experience positive wellbeing outcomes?” she told The Borneo Post during the Borneo Animation & Games Festival (BAGFest) here.
Galea Baron said RITEC was developed through multi-year research involving hundreds of children from different countries, as well as researchers, universities and Unicef’s research office.
She said children’s own experiences were incorporated into the framework to better understand how digital games could influence their well-being.
The framework identifies several dimensions of well-being that could be positively influenced through well-designed games, including safety and security, autonomy, emotions and connection.
Galea Baron said safety and security remained fundamental, as children could not experience positive well-being outcomes if they were not safe.
However, she said developers should also consider how game design could support other aspects of children’s lives.
“Autonomy, emotions, connection — these are all really also important for game designers to push themselves and think about how do you create an experience that’s going to be a positive influence in children’s lives,” she said.
To translate the framework into practical development tools, Unicef subsequently worked with game designers from companies around the world to develop the RITEC Design Toolbox.
Galea Baron said the toolbox provided resources to help development teams link familiar game features to research on children’s well-being and apply the findings during the game-creation process.
She said RITEC remained an evolving area of work, with Unicef currently looking more closely at the safety and security dimension and considering specific recommendations for businesses.
Galea Baron said one challenge was reaching developers who were not familiar with RITEC or did not consider themselves to be designing specifically for children.
“I think it’s always really helpful for us to tap into new audiences and go to places where perhaps the work isn’t yet known to start implementing,” she said.
She added that discussions with industry players at BAGFest provided an opportunity to explore how RITEC could be applied more widely by game developers.
“I think there’s a lot of game designers who know and care about and buy into this kind of mission,” she said.
Galea Baron stressed that RITEC was not a completed initiative, but an active and evolving area of work that would continue to develop through engagement with the industry.