Observations and Interviews

Three rounds of ethnographic observations were conducted in a third grade classroom at a local elementary school. The class consisted of 16 students between the ages of 8 and 9, and one teacher. The students’ desks were set up in clusters of four and they used these clusters to work together as a group. As far as technology goes, 3 desktop computers, 1 laptop and a Smart board were present in the classroom. In order to organize the class the teacher had stacks of paper assignments lining his desk and lists posted on the walls.

Paper Prototpe Testing

The focus of this session was to see which style of icons children preferred; black and white, colour, greyscale or pictures. Each child was given a placemat that had 8 predefined sections with velcro that they could attach their answers to.  They were also given 36 laminated icons with velcro on the back that could adhere to the mats.  Each icon was about the size of a quarter and belonged to one of 8 terms; math, weather, chores, homework, world, birthday, schedule and tasks.  Each of the terms had icons that varied in colour and detail. However after the session was completed there was no distinct selection preferences. After speaking with the teacher and some other professionals it was determined that even though the children enjoyed using this method of prototyping it was not the most contusive in that it offered the children too many selections to focus on at once and not allowing them the chance to focus in on the task on hand.

Computer Based Testing

Based on the findings from the paper prototype session of testing it was decided that a web interface would be better suited to test these preferences, not only do children love using the computers but it was also a more efficient way of mocking up the test without having to redo all of the icons. Because of this we were also able to test for more. The web interface went through and exposed the children to four images at one time, in total they were ask to select their favorite image from twenty different groups. The questions themselves focused on testing the following features; both style and size preferences in terms of fonts and icons. This method proved to be much more successful in that it provided the children with fewer options and they were able to clearly see the differences in between the different choices in order to make better decisions.