Janne Jul Jensen

A review of research methods in children's technology design

Research methods have been objects of discussions for decades and defining research methods is still a quite considerable challenge. However, it is important to understand research methods in different disciplines as it informs us on future directions and influences on the discipline.We conduct a survey of research methods in paper publications. 105 papers on childrens technology design are classified on a two-dimensional matrix on research method and purpose. Our results show a strong focus on engineering of products as applied research and on evaluation of developed products in the field or in the lab. Also, we find that much research is conducted in natural setting environments with strong focus on field studies.

Comparison of think-aloud and constructive interaction in usability testing with children

Constructive interaction provides natural thinking-aloud as test subjects collaborate to solve tasks. Since children may face difficulties in following instructions for a standard think-aloud test, constructive interaction has been suggested as evaluation method when conducting usability testing with children. However, the relationship between think-aloud and constructive interaction is still poorly understood.We present an experiment that compares think-aloud and constructive interaction in usability testing. The experiment involves 60 children with three setups where children apply think-aloud, and constructive interaction in acquainted and non-acquainted pairs. Our results showed only minor significant differences between the setups, but the pairing of the children had impact on identification of usability problems as acquainted dyads identified more problems both in total and of the most severe than non-acquainted dyads and individual testers. Finally, the acquainted pairs reported that they had to put less effort into the testing than the think-aloud and non-acquainted children.

Exploring verbalization and collaboration of constructive interaction with children

Constructive interaction provides natural thinking-aloud as test subjects collaborate in pairs to solve tasks. Since children may face difficulties in following instructions for a standard think-aloud test, constructive interaction has been suggested as evaluation method when usability testing with children. However, the relationship between think-aloud and constructive interaction is still poorly understood. We present an experiment that compares think-aloud and constructive interaction. The experiment involves 60 children with three setups where children apply think-aloud or constructive interaction in acquainted and non-acquainted pairs. Our results show that the pairing of children had impact on how the children collaborated in pairs and how they would afterward assess the testing sessions. In some cases, we found that acquainted dyads would perform well as they would more naturally interact and collaborate while in other cases they would have problems in controlling the evaluations.

Evaluating in a healthcare setting: a comparison between concurrent and retrospective verbalisation

The think-aloud protocol, also known as concurrent verbalisation protocol, is widely used in the field of HCI today, but as the technology and applications have evolved the protocol has had to cope with this. Therefore new variations of the protocol have seen the light of day. One example is retrospective verbalisation. To compare concurrent and retrospective verbalisation an experiment was conducted. A home healthcare application was evaluated with 15 participants using both protocols. The results of the experiment show that the two protocols have each their strengths and weaknesses, and as such are very equally good although very different.