Yesterday we had our final presentation with our Exercise group A.
Here's a link to our final presentation on Prezi. We felt really strong and were excited to get second place in our group :)
Final Presentation Link
Thursday, November 13, 2014
Wednesday, November 5, 2014
User Testing Summary of Think Alouds
We learned early in the semester that usability testing and user testing in general are extremely important and beneficial to the design process. Especially as engineers, it is crucial that we test our designs and our products with users unlike ourselves. For our group, children were the target group, so children are who we tested our product with.
Something we kept in mind while testing was the definition of usability from Jan Gulliksen's lecture:
Detailed Summary of User Testing/Think Alouds:
Our users ranged from the age of 7-10. Each of the children were accompanied by their parents. We did our user tests on Sunday, November 2, 2014 right outside the entry to the Natural History Museum between the hours of 15:30 and 17:00. It was about 5 degrees celsius outside. The sun set at 15:50, so it was beginning to get dark.
Observations of User Tests broken down by aspects of Usability:
Effectiveness:
- The users did not realize there was a start button. If they did, they did not press it with their foot.
- The users did not realize that the monkey (aka Drakis the stuffed dragon) was climbing the tree and gaining one point for each correct answer.
- None of the users read the descriptive text about the animal on the panel.
- The children's parents encouraged them when they were correct, incorrect, or unsure.
Efficiency:
- The users responded well to instant feedback which in our case was "ding" for correct and "buzzz/urghh" for incorrect.
- The users seemed to follow the guided instructions quite well.
- The children were mostly logical with process of elimination, however we did note that it would make things better if the screens could be greyed out. This would prevent user error.
Satisfaction:
- When a user did not know the answer, they often seemed uncomfortable. We hypothesize that the reason for this was because 5 people were staring at them.
- The difficulty level seemed just about right, although one child did say, "Va svårt det var!" when he walked away with his father. We definitely don't want the game to be easy, and the difficulty did keep him engaged!
The reason we noted all of those details above about the environment of our user testing is because it was not a typical environment where the game would be placed. Inside the museum it was quite noisy, and we did not want to disturb anyone, so we did our tests outside. Because of this uncomfortable environment, many users did not explore as much as we had hoped. Our theory is that given a typical museum setting where a user is more comfortable, the user will most likely spend a little more time in the game an around the exhibit.
Based on our user testing, we did change some aspects of our game for our final product. Those can be noted here.
Something we kept in mind while testing was the definition of usability from Jan Gulliksen's lecture:
"the extent to which a product
can be used, by specified users
to achieve specified goals with
effectiveness, efficiency and
satisfaction in a specified
context of use."
Also, from James McConnell's guest lecture, we liked a few of the canvases he presented for personas and user testing. We decided to use the user testing plan canvas.
Also, from James McConnell's guest lecture, we liked a few of the canvases he presented for personas and user testing. We decided to use the user testing plan canvas.
Detailed Summary of User Testing/Think Alouds:
Our users ranged from the age of 7-10. Each of the children were accompanied by their parents. We did our user tests on Sunday, November 2, 2014 right outside the entry to the Natural History Museum between the hours of 15:30 and 17:00. It was about 5 degrees celsius outside. The sun set at 15:50, so it was beginning to get dark.
Observations of User Tests broken down by aspects of Usability:
Effectiveness:
- The users did not realize there was a start button. If they did, they did not press it with their foot.
- The users did not realize that the monkey (aka Drakis the stuffed dragon) was climbing the tree and gaining one point for each correct answer.
- None of the users read the descriptive text about the animal on the panel.
- The children's parents encouraged them when they were correct, incorrect, or unsure.
Efficiency:
- The users responded well to instant feedback which in our case was "ding" for correct and "buzzz/urghh" for incorrect.
- The users seemed to follow the guided instructions quite well.
- The children were mostly logical with process of elimination, however we did note that it would make things better if the screens could be greyed out. This would prevent user error.
Satisfaction:
- When a user did not know the answer, they often seemed uncomfortable. We hypothesize that the reason for this was because 5 people were staring at them.
- The difficulty level seemed just about right, although one child did say, "Va svårt det var!" when he walked away with his father. We definitely don't want the game to be easy, and the difficulty did keep him engaged!
The reason we noted all of those details above about the environment of our user testing is because it was not a typical environment where the game would be placed. Inside the museum it was quite noisy, and we did not want to disturb anyone, so we did our tests outside. Because of this uncomfortable environment, many users did not explore as much as we had hoped. Our theory is that given a typical museum setting where a user is more comfortable, the user will most likely spend a little more time in the game an around the exhibit.
Based on our user testing, we did change some aspects of our game for our final product. Those can be noted here.
Expert-/heuristic evaluation debriefing
In the following we elaborate on the steps and measures we took in order to incorporate the feedback, which we received during the expert-evaluation.
2) Incorporated: we already thought of security concerns regarding the panels before, and decided to use safety glass plates instead of touch screens.
3) Incorporated: in favour of our target group we decided that playing the game as a couple is sufficient.
4) Incorporated: we converted the touch screen into a big panel "button", as suggested.
5) Omitted: we decided against levels.
6) Incorporated: after the feedback we defined 30s. as the time for one round and tried it out during the user testing, which turned out to be sufficient.
7) Omitted: we could not identify any suitable use case for a moving floor.
8) Incorporated: we added an introduction (i.e.; a voice recording) at the beginning of the game.
9) Incorporated: we added voice feedback (e.g.; "perfect, nästa", "rätt", "fel", ...)
10) Considered: a handicapped person will need assistance from an adult.
11) Incorporated: we did, a rope from the topnot make a final decision how the monkey climbs the tree.
12) Omitted: dependent on question no. 11, and we decided against the monkey falling of the tree at the end.
Questions
1) Omitted: due to the fact that our design is not subject to budget restriction and as we strongly believe that an implementation of the system at a reasonable-price is feasible.2) Incorporated: we already thought of security concerns regarding the panels before, and decided to use safety glass plates instead of touch screens.
3) Incorporated: in favour of our target group we decided that playing the game as a couple is sufficient.
4) Incorporated: we converted the touch screen into a big panel "button", as suggested.
5) Omitted: we decided against levels.
6) Incorporated: after the feedback we defined 30s. as the time for one round and tried it out during the user testing, which turned out to be sufficient.
7) Omitted: we could not identify any suitable use case for a moving floor.
8) Incorporated: we added an introduction (i.e.; a voice recording) at the beginning of the game.
9) Incorporated: we added voice feedback (e.g.; "perfect, nästa", "rätt", "fel", ...)
10) Considered: a handicapped person will need assistance from an adult.
11) Incorporated: we did, a rope from the top
12) Omitted: dependent on question no. 11, and we decided against the monkey falling of the tree at the end.
Suggestions
All suggestions were directly incorporated into our design and prototype.
Tuesday, November 4, 2014
Team Meeting on November 4th, 2014
Today (Tuesday 4th Nov) we've been discussing what we need to finish before the final presentation this Thursday.
We were first aiming for having 10 animals for the presentation, however since we only had 8 back-boards for our animal pictures we only used 8 while testing the prototype at Naturhistoriska last Sunday. We've decided on staying at 8 animals, as it felt like more animals would just become too hard / confusing when we tried it out.
Changes to the prototype
The children who tried our prototype at the museum did not really notice the tree nor our little plush animal (Drakis) climbing up it to reach the top. To make it more obvious what the goal of the game is we decided to record and switch out the first sound that plays when a player hit the start button. Previously
"Vilket djur låter så här, tryck på rätt bild"
"Which animal sounds like this? Touch the right picture"
Now
"Hjälp Drakis att klättra upp för trädet och nå bananerna! Vilket djur låter så här? Tryck på rätt bild"
"Help Drakis climb up the tree and reach the bananas!
Make two double-sided frames with one side green and one side red, to hold in front of the pictures when the player touches the correct / wrong animal. (For more feedback).
Presentation-plan:
Prezi presentation by Jessie Janse and Alex (up to 7 min)
Prototype presentation (Everyone) (3-5 min)
Thomas: reads through the blog posts we've written together (not the personal notes) looking for errors. Everyone correct errors.
Get cardboard from Pedro to make green/red frames.
One blog post for feedback, one blogpost for feedback elaboration action.
Change the dates!
Jessie: User testing blog post, bring brown colour pencils, create reset button. Get the bananas. Other groups feedback.
Johan: Walk through the forests söder om söder with a machete in search for green leaves. Put the leaves on the tree trunk. Record new "Help drakis climb the tree" sound for soundboard
Alex: Switch out the sound on the soundboard that Johan records and sends to you.
We were first aiming for having 10 animals for the presentation, however since we only had 8 back-boards for our animal pictures we only used 8 while testing the prototype at Naturhistoriska last Sunday. We've decided on staying at 8 animals, as it felt like more animals would just become too hard / confusing when we tried it out.
Changes to the prototype
The children who tried our prototype at the museum did not really notice the tree nor our little plush animal (Drakis) climbing up it to reach the top. To make it more obvious what the goal of the game is we decided to record and switch out the first sound that plays when a player hit the start button. Previously
"Vilket djur låter så här, tryck på rätt bild"
"Which animal sounds like this? Touch the right picture"
Now
"Hjälp Drakis att klättra upp för trädet och nå bananerna! Vilket djur låter så här? Tryck på rätt bild"
"Help Drakis climb up the tree and reach the bananas!
Make two double-sided frames with one side green and one side red, to hold in front of the pictures when the player touches the correct / wrong animal. (For more feedback).
Presentation-plan:
Prezi presentation by Jessie Janse and Alex (up to 7 min)
Prototype presentation (Everyone) (3-5 min)
To do
Jessie, Janse and Alex finishes the presentation. Practice to be concise and don't babble. Keep it short!Thomas: reads through the blog posts we've written together (not the personal notes) looking for errors. Everyone correct errors.
Get cardboard from Pedro to make green/red frames.
One blog post for feedback, one blogpost for feedback elaboration action.
Change the dates!
Jessie: User testing blog post, bring brown colour pencils, create reset button. Get the bananas. Other groups feedback.
Johan: Walk through the forests söder om söder with a machete in search for green leaves. Put the leaves on the tree trunk. Record new "Help drakis climb the tree" sound for soundboard
Alex: Switch out the sound on the soundboard that Johan records and sends to you.
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