Kirsten Risden

Guidelines for usability testing with children

A Although user-centered design is a well-supported concept in the literature on adult computer products, not until recently have publications begun to appear addressing the need to include the user in the design process of childrens computer products. Good examples are a recent panel discussion in interactions on the importance of understanding the perspectives and needs of children, and the energizing work of Allison Druin and Cynthia Solomon [1, 2]. Growth has also occurred in evaluation research in both the industrial and academic communities, assessing the effectiveness or appeal of various types of (6 to 10 years), and middle-school-aged children (11 to 14 years). These age divisions are arbitrary , and many behaviors will overlap. In our experience, most children younger than 2 1/2 years of age are not proficient enough with standard input devices (e.g., mouse, trackball, or keyboard) to interact with the technology and provide useful data. Children older than 14 years of age will likely behave as adults in a testing situation and should be treated accordingly. Preschool (ages 2 to 5 years) Preschoolers require the most extensive adaptations of usability testing because their attention span, their motivation to please adults, and their ability to adjust to strange surroundings and new people may change from one moment to the next. In general, children in this age range should be allowed to explore the computer according to their own interests and pacing instead of performing a series of directed tasks. They will often be happy to show you what they know, and what they can do on the computer independently. When assessing appeal or engagement, testers will need to closely observe childrens behavior such as sighing, smiling, or sliding under the table. Children this age often have difficulty expressing their likes and dislikes in words. Elementary School (ages 6 to 10 years) Children in this age range are relatively easy to include in software usability testing. Their experience in school makes them ready to sit at a task and follow directions from an adult, and they are generally not self-conscious about being observed as they play on the computer. They will answer questions and try new things with ease. In this age range, children will develop more sophistication about how they can describe the things they see and do. Six-and seven-year-old children will be more hands-on—ready to work on the computer but a little shy or inarticulate when …

The Task Gallery: a 3D window manager

The Task Gallery is a window manager that uses interactive 3D graphics to provide direct support for task management and document comparison, lacking from many systems implementing the desktop metaphor. User tasks appear as artwork hung on the walls of a virtual art gallery, with the selected task on a stage. Multiple documents can be selected and displayed side-by-side using 3D space to provide uniform and intuitive scaling. The Task Gallery hosts any Windows application, using a novel redirection mechanism that routes input and output between the 3D environment and unmodified 2D Windows applications. User studies suggest that the Task Gallery helps with task management, is enjoyable to use, and that the 3D metaphor evokes spatial memory and cognition.

An initial examination of ease of use for 2D and 3D information visualizations of web content

We present a discussion and initial empirical investigation of user-interface designs for a set of three Web browsers. The target end-user population we identified were experienced software engineers who maintained large Web sites or portals. The user study demonstrated the strengths and weaknesses of two conventional 2D browsers for this target user, as well as that of XML3D, a novel browser that integrates an interactive 3D hyperbolic graph view with a more traditional 2D list view of the data. A standard collapse/expand tree browser and a Web-based hierarchical categorization similar to Yahoo!, were competitively evaluated against XML3D. No reliable difference between the two 2D browsers was observed. However, the results showed clear differences between XML3D and the 2D user interfaces combined. With XML3D, participants performed search tasks within existing categories reliably faster with no decline in the quality of their responses. It was informally observed that integrating the ability to view the overall structure of the information space with the ability to easily assess local and global relationships was key to successful search performance. XML3D was the only tool of the three that efficiently showed the overall structure within one visualization. The XML3D browser accomplished this by combining a 3D graph layout view as well as an accompanying 2D list view. Users did opt to use the 2D user-interface components of XML3D during new category search tasks, and the XML3D performance advantage was no longer obtained in those conditions. In addition, there were no reliable differences in overall user satisfaction across the three user-interface designs. Since we observed subjects using the XML3D features differently depending on the kind of search task, future studies should explore optimal ways of integrating the use of novel focus+context visualizations and 2D lists for effective information retrieval. The contribution of this paper is that it includes empirical data to demonstrate where novel focus+context views might benefit experienced users over and above more conventional user-interface techniques, in addition to where design improvements are warranted.

Evaluating computer game concepts with children

This paper describes exploratory research on how to evaluate concepts for new computer games with small samples of eight- and nine-year-old children. There were two phases to the research, one to validate the methodology with existing games and one to apply the methodology to new game ideas. The results found that separating game ideas (presented as brief written descriptions that were also read aloud to children) from game art (presented on computer screens) elicited the most valid reactions from the children. Rankings and discussion of rationale were more effective than ratings and open-ended questions. Conclusions are that children can effectively evaluate the appeal and potential of game concepts with appropriate methodology.

Interactive advertising: patterns of use and effectiveness

The number of people exploring the World Wrde Web is growing dramatically. Many companies are interested in the potential of advertising on the web, but there is little research to guide their decision. The present study demonstrates the concept of a corporate sponsored website as a promising direction for web advertisers. Advertisements for products targetiug lo-14 year-o& were presented as web games and inserted into a prototype website. For example, in one ad, players scored points by actively steering toward the advertised product with their web video-game car, while dodging undesirable obstacles on the road (sound effects included). For comparison, subjects also watched a TV ad for the same product embedded in a TV program. One day later, tests showed that web ads positively influenced how easily the advertised brand came to mind compared to TV ads and compared to no-ad controls. The effectiveness of interactive web ads for influencing consumers’ memory in this preliiinaty study suggests that it merits more attention as a potentially viable medium for advertismg. Factors that could contribute to the advantage for web ads are ,discussed.

It's a global economy out there: usability Innovation for global marketplaces

We describe a workshop for usability researchers to share information about international and intercultural research methods.

The Future of the Internet

Over the last few years, the internet has grown exponentially. New internet-technologies, coupled with the proliferation and networking of computers have given rise to new applications. A truly “wired world” is emerging where access and manipulation of information are moving away from the confines of the desktop to impact more of our daily lives. This panel session will discuss the human factors issues associated with new internet technologies, products, and services.