Digital products and platforms that young people use are overwhelmingly designed by adults. From educational software to social media to gaming platforms, decisions about features, interfaces, and policies are made by people whose direct experience of being young in digital environments is limited to memory at best. Youth-centered design approaches ask what would happen if young people's needs, perspectives, and participation shaped the technologies they use.
The Gap Between Designers and Users
Technology designers are typically adults, often from relatively privileged backgrounds, working in professional environments far removed from the contexts where young people actually use their products. This distance creates blind spots about how young people experience and interact with technology.
Adult assumptions about young people may not reflect reality. Designers may assume more technical sophistication—or less—than young users actually have. They may not understand the social dynamics that shape how technology gets used in youth contexts. They may not anticipate how features will be appropriated for purposes designers didn't intend.
Commercial incentives compound the problem. Products targeting young people may optimize for engagement, monetization, or data collection in ways that don't serve young users' genuine interests. Without young people involved in design decisions, their interests lack strong advocates in the development process.
What Youth-Centered Design Means
Youth-centered design isn't just market research to ensure products appeal to young consumers—it's meaningfully involving young people in design processes and centering their wellbeing rather than just their engagement in design decisions.
This approach requires understanding youth contexts deeply. How do young people actually use technology in their lives? What problems do they face that technology might address? What harms do current designs create that different approaches might avoid? These questions require genuine engagement with young people, not just assumptions about them.
Youth-centered design also requires attention to diverse youth experiences. Young people aren't monolithic—they vary by age, background, ability, circumstances, and preferences. Design that serves some youth well may fail or harm others. Inclusive youth-centered design considers this diversity.
Participatory Approaches
Participatory design methodologies include young people as active participants in design processes rather than merely as research subjects or test users. Various levels of participation are possible, from consultation to co-design to youth-led development.
Consultation gathers youth input at various stages—understanding needs, evaluating concepts, testing prototypes. While better than no youth involvement, consultation leaves decision-making power with adult designers who may or may not act on what they hear.
Co-design involves young people as partners in the design process, with genuine influence over decisions. This requires creating conditions where young people can participate meaningfully—appropriate settings, accessible methods, and real power rather than token involvement.
Youth-led design goes further, putting young people in primary decision-making roles with adults in support. Some organizations and projects have experimented with this approach, though it remains rare in commercial technology development.
Design for Safety and Wellbeing
Youth-centered design prioritizes safety and wellbeing in ways that engagement-focused commercial design often doesn't. This means considering not just what young users will enjoy or spend time on, but what will serve their developmental needs and protect them from harm.
Privacy-protective design would minimize data collection from young users and give them meaningful control over their information. Current practices—extensive data collection with complex terms young people don't read—fail this standard.
Design that supports healthy use would include features that help young people manage their engagement rather than maximizing time on platform. Time awareness tools, easy stopping points, and default settings that support balance represent design choices different from current norms.
Safety features designed with young people would reflect actual youth experiences with risk. Adult-designed safety tools often prove useless or counterproductive because they don't match how young people actually experience and respond to danger.
Accessibility and Inclusion
Youth-centered design requires accessibility for young people with disabilities. Accessibility standards developed primarily for adult users may not fully address young users' needs. Youth with disabilities face technology barriers that affect their education, social lives, and opportunities.
Cultural responsiveness matters for youth from diverse backgrounds. Technology designed with mainstream cultural assumptions may not serve—or may actively alienate—youth from minority communities. Indigenous youth, immigrant youth, and others may find that technology doesn't reflect their experiences or values.
Economic accessibility means considering young users who don't have latest devices, reliable connectivity, or resources for premium features. Design that assumes ideal conditions excludes those whose circumstances fall short.
Educational Technology
Educational technology represents a domain where youth-centered design seems especially important yet often falls short. Products designed to be used by young people for learning are frequently created without meaningful youth input into what makes learning engaging, accessible, or effective.
Students have perspectives on their own learning that teachers and designers may not share. What motivates them, what confuses them, what helps them understand—student input on these questions could improve educational technology significantly.
Yet students typically have no say in which technologies their schools adopt, how those technologies are configured, or how they're used pedagogically. Student voice in educational technology decisions remains rare despite students being the primary users.
Social Media and Platform Design
Social media platforms profoundly shape young users' social experiences, yet those users have essentially no voice in platform governance. Policies affecting millions of young people are made by adults without youth input.
Youth advisory bodies could provide platforms with perspectives they currently lack. Some organizations have created youth advisory structures, but major platforms have largely not—despite young users representing a core demographic.
Content moderation decisions particularly affect young users, who may face restrictions adults don't or whose content and communication styles may be misinterpreted by moderation systems trained on adult norms.
Barriers to Youth Participation
Including young people in design faces practical barriers. Legal and ethical requirements for involving minors in research and development create complications. Power dynamics between adult professionals and young participants may inhibit genuine participation. Time and compensation for youth participation present challenges.
Tokenism—including young people for appearance without genuine influence—represents a persistent risk. Organizations may tout youth involvement while making decisions without regard to youth input. Meaningful participation requires structural commitment, not just occasional consultation.
Building youth capacity for design participation takes time and resources. Young people may need support to contribute effectively, particularly in technical domains. This investment may seem inefficient compared to adult-only processes, but produces better outcomes.
Questions for Reflection
Should regulations require companies to demonstrate youth input in products designed for or heavily used by young people?
How can participatory design processes meaningfully include diverse young people rather than just those most easily accessible to adult designers?
What would social media look like if designed with youth wellbeing—rather than engagement metrics—as the primary goal?