User Testing II

We did our second set of user testing this week. The goal of this user testing was to specifically test the interface including story, character, controls, user actions, and height to make sure it was appropriate for children.

We formally did in depth questioning and observation of five children (2 girls, 3 boys), ages 4 to 12. We also laid out surveys and wrote down observations after the BVW show. Over 40 children and adults went through the pillow tree experience.

We learned that:

1. Our experience is fun. Some children played through the experience over 15 times in a row, even though they weren't receiving any gift from it. They just enjoyed the actions such as pulling the vine and turning the heart.

2. Our experience is intuitive. We asked all of the children to lead us through the experience they had played through, and to explain in detail the reasoning of why they did it. All of the children, even as young as 4, knew what actions they were supposed to do, when to do it, and why they were doing it. Additionally, the children were able to find all of the interactions (i.e. buttons, the vine, the heart) on the first try. The only confusing part was when the children were supposed to put their hands on the heart-shaped button to make a wish. All of the children let go too early. We resolved this issue by shortening the length of time required to hold on, and allowing the child the option to let go whenever they wished. We also fixed the broken vibration motor and added visual and sound effects to show how long the child needed to hold on to the button.

3. The experience left kids wanting more. When asked, all of the children thought the experience was just right or too short.

We plan to implement all of these findings to make our user experience better.