How do children (aged 6–12 years) understand and make use of a digital tool that is under development? This article builds on an ongoing interdisciplinary research project in which children, social workers (the inventers of this social innovation) and researchers together develop an interactive digital tool (application) to strengthen children’s participation during the planning and process of welfare assessments. Departing from social constructionism, and using a discursive narrative approach with visual ethnography, the aim of the article is to display how the children co-construct the application and contribute with “stories of life situations” by drawing themselves as characters and the places they frequent. The findings show that the children improved the application by suggesting more affordances so that they could better create themselves/others, by discovering bugs, and by showing how it could appeal to children of various ages. The application helped the children to start communicating and bonding when creating themselves in detail, drawing places/characters and describing events associated with them, and sharing small life stories. The application can help children and social workers to connect and facilitate children’s participation by allowing them to focus on their own perspectives when drawing and sharing stories.

儿童（6至12岁）如何理解和利用正在开发的数字工具？本文基于正在进行的跨学科研究项目，其中儿童，社会工作者（此社会创新的发明者）和研究人员共同开发了交互式数字工具（应用程序），以加强儿童在福利评估的计划和过程中的参与。本文与社会建构主义背道而驰，并采用了具有视觉民族志的话语叙事方法，旨在通过描绘自己的性格和他们经常去的地方，展示孩子们如何共同构建应用程序并为“生活状况故事”做出贡献。研究结果表明，孩子们通过建议更多的负担能力来改进应用程序，以便他们可以通过发现bug并展示其如何吸引各个年龄段的孩子来更好地创建自己/他人。该应用程序帮助孩子们在进行详细的自我创建，绘制位置/角色并描述与他们相关的事件以及分享小型生活故事时开始交流和联系。该应用程序允许儿童和社工在绘画和分享故事时专注于自己的观点，从而帮助他们联系并促进他们的参与。绘制地点/角色并描述与之相关的事件，并分享小生活故事。该应用程序允许儿童和社工在绘画和分享故事时专注于自己的观点，从而帮助他们联系并促进他们的参与。绘制地点/角色并描述与之相关的事件，并分享小故事。该应用程序允许儿童和社工在绘画和分享故事时专注于自己的观点，从而帮助他们联系并促进他们的参与。