Elements of Usability: Usability and Children Part 1 - Edutainment

The Logical Journey of the Zoombinis has been an Edutainment favourite for many years (And a personal favourite too!)

Traditionally, usability has been defined in a very particular way and with a very specific group of people in mind. ISO 9241-11(ISO, 1998) defines usability as "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."  Typically usability studies are performed for on the job software, where the user uses the software to complete a task that is related to their occupation or is required practically in their personal life. Software of this category is developed for adults. By contrast, software developed for children requires a completely new way of thinking of usability. Software in this category differs from other software because it is used voluntarily and is not necessarily task-oriented. Since using the software is, in fact, voluntary using the product must be fun or else it will not be used.

Edutainment is a specific classification of software that combines educational elements with fun elements of entertainment, hence the fusion of the words. The objective of edutainment is to provide a learning environment that is engaging and makes children want to continue to learn. However, if children are incapable of effectively using the software, they are not very likely to learn while using it. An application is therefore usable not when it can be used to complete tasks, but when it is effective at teaching the material. Furthermore, software with usability problems are neither fun nor engaging, and children will not want to use it regardless of its merits. One suggested way to evaluate the success of an edutainment application is through a child's reaction. If the child is willing and able to teach another child how to use it, you have a great product on your hands. Unfortunately, while this test is a good indicator, it is difficult to actually test it in any meaningful way. There really is no agreed upon definition for or method for finding usability of children's software, but there are a four pillars of that seem to be consistent: effective learning, effective teaching, effective communication and effective use of technology.

Before we get too focused on the educational portion however, there is another important stakeholder to discuss: children. Since usability is focused on user-centred design and children are the primary consumers of edutainment, children factor just as heavily into the usability equation. What do kids look for in an application? Ultimately, the answer typically comes down to one thing: fun. Children learn through play so they will gravitate towards activities they enjoy and shy away from those they do not. If edutainment software is not fun, children won't learn anything for one very simple reason: they won't use it. The challenge of the edutainment designer is to combine fun and function into an appealing and intuitive design. Sound hard? Get comfortable.

Putting the “Fun” in “Function”

The success of an edutainment game is strongly influenced by two factors: whether or not it is an effective teaching tool and whether or not is a fun pass-time. Without fun, children will not have the desire to use the application, meaning there is absolutely no opportunity to learn from it. Another important aspect to consider is fun's counterpart: frustration. Edutainment should not disregard the usability knowledge that has already been compiled for you to use simply because the target audience is different. The same standards should still apply, but with some extra considerations. The reason is simple: when a child has a difficult time trying to understand how to navigate your software, they have a lot less fun. The challenge of edutainment is getting amusement and education balanced appropriately.

Mudball Wall from The Zoombinis combines logic and fun with a zany machine, pattern matching, great animation and just enough hints to keep children both engaged and learning.

Good educational software should never be passive. The more activity that is on the screen, the more engaging it will be for children to play with. However, activity on the screen cannot be passive activity – good edutainment has learners constantly doing and interacting, not watching and listening. Meaningful interaction should integrated into your product as much as possible to ensure that your audience enjoys the time they spend with your product. Using multimedia to enhance engagement and stimulation can increase attention span for young learners. Customisation is also important when considering edutainment with multiple levels of both learning and game-play. Your audience should be able to customise the pace of the software to optimise the program for their individual learning style and specific needs. A good rule of thumb is to include two levels below and above the average difficulty. Despite your best estimates and tests, there will always be learners who enjoy a slower pace and those learners who crave the extra challenge.

For children, much of their ability to enjoy themselves rides on their ability to both immerse themselves in and relate to the physical design of the interface. The appearance factor often outweighs other factors such as functionality. Children tend to choose the application that features characters they recognise, lots of colours and vivid designs. Young learners tend to click on icons that look familiar to them, such as a paintbrush or pencil tool in a paint application. They are less likely to click on icons that look unfamiliar to them such as the dropper tool. Furthermore, simplistic, yet colourful designs tend to better than complex designs. More complication often means more confusion on the part of the user.

An important aspect of both fun and usability is to ensure that users are always aware of what is going on, both in game and out of game. For example, often instead of a navigation menu, the child is presented with an image. Menu controls are undetectable by the user until they roll over the elements of the screen to find which ones have roll-over effects and which ones do not. The lack of clear, definable navigation means that some areas may be overlooked or may frustrate the user. In game, enemies and obstacles should be clearly shown as such. If it is impossible to distinguish what is good from what is bad, an edutainment game will be unplayable, meaning that instead of the focus being on learning the lesson while playing a game, the game's mechanic becomes the central focus and learning does not take place as much. A general rule is to include a mechanic that distinguishes elements that a child can interact with from everything else. Subtle signals to indicate possible interaction keeps the game moving at a good pace as well as curbs frustration with the software.

Moreover, the quality of the instructions plays a role in how fun the game is. Since you cannot play the game before understanding how to play it, instructions are crucial. Keep your audience in mind when designing your instructions. Children should be comfortable with what they are reading, not pushed to frustration. Instructions should be clear, typed in a font large enough for young eyes to read without straining and no longer than a few sentences. Images and animations are also very helpful, displaying on screen which key to press for a certain action is more helpful than stating the key on screen only. Furthermore, many children do not know the names of all the keys on the keyboard. Most children simply have not had the exposure required to be able to identify every key. To further complicate the issue, some keyboards do not label every key, or label keys with their symbols instead of their names making them difficult or impossible for young learners to find. Some keyboards label keys with acronyms or have different names for keys altogether. For example, some keyboards use the term “enter key” while other use the term “return key”. 
 

 
The Pizza Man describes instructions orally to children in The Zoombinis.
 

Beyond the basic interface of the game, the game-play itself should be engaging, informative and fun. There are many approaches to this aspect of edutainment, and for every genre the guidelines for making a game fun are different, mostly because of the variance in the niche audiences they target. Since there are many gaming styles, I cannot possibly focus on all of them, but I can give some general tips to keep any kind of educational game on the right track.

A good rule is to analyse and imitate current trends in gaming. If you are making a game that already has a successful, non-edutainment counterpart, it would be worth your time to invest some time playing it and figuring out what it is that makes it fun to play. In particular make sure that common mechanics like jumping are similar to non-edutainment games of the same genre. Your audience most likely plays games that are not educational as well and will be used to certain mechanics that will be difficult to “unlearn”. Do your homework and understand how your game works. Often the games that are the most fun are the games with smooth, simple controls but incremental creative challenges. Games that are the most fun to play give games a rush when they win. That rush comes from having just the right amount of challenge that it isn't easy but not so much that it's impossible. Overcoming obstacles and achieving that “epic win” is a driving force in the level of enjoyment experienced by the player. The most memorable games tend to be the games that are easy to play, but difficult to play well.

Making the Grade

The other half of edutainment is the educational portion. Since the reason for the existence of edutainment is usually the educational half of the equation and not the gaming half, the unique usability needs of teaching through software should also be addressed. Teachers use educational software in classrooms and school computer labs and parents use educational software with their children at home. Edutainment is becoming increasingly common as more pressure is placed on parents to help their children excel academically. Edutainment is not just about the fun, it is also about the learning.

One of the most crucial elements, and one of the hardest to incorporate is effective and appropriate feedback. Many edutainment applications highlight negative feedback or positive feedback but very few highlight both and even fewer explain why a young learner received the feedback they received. One of the main reasons why being taught by another person is because of the feedback they give. Think of how a tutor might teach a young child. The child makes a mistake and the tutor observes it. The tutor determines what the error is and figures out what may have led them to the answer they gave. The tutor then explains to the child where in the process they are having difficulty, and teaches them the correct method to arriving at the answer. Software often tells a child whether they are right or wrong, but rarely has the capability to determine why a child came up with the answer they input, or to highlight exactly where they think the child may have gone wrong. One solution is to display the correct answer if the child has given an incorrect answer, however this solution only identifies the data the child got wrong and does not address the root of the problem. Despite its implementation restrictions, feedback is one of the largest overlooked elements of edutainment when assessing the learning portion of the product.

Zoombinis cannot sit next to each other on the raft if they do not have something in common.  When a zoombini cannot be placed next to another zoombini the rafting frog explains why in his amusingly funny voice.

As I mentioned previously, the range of difficulty should be varied for game-play. This rule also holds true in terms of the informative content of edutainment as well. Provide your audience with two levels of difficulty both below and above what you believe is a reasonable difficulty. Consider carefully whether or not you will tie your game difficulty to your educational difficulty. One benefit of keeping the two separate is that children are even more able to customise their own learning pace, relieving frustration. However, by separating the two difficulties the product may open itself up to becoming less educational when children interested in the game discover they can turn the information difficulty to beginner and the game-play difficulty to expert in order to relieve themselves of the need to think.

One question that is debated is whether or not to include quizzes as part of the game. Quizzes definitely lower fun but they arguably encourage learning. There is a common fear that making edutainment too much fun lowers the value children place on education, that because edutainment makes learning more fun children will be less likely to take their academic careers less seriously. This theory has been neither proven or dis-proven to my knowledge, but it is a pervasive view point nonetheless. Some games attempt to graft quizzes onto game-play, but this style of fusion often makes both the game and the learning more difficult. In one example, the quizzes were too difficult not because of the content but because of the developmental stage of the target audience. Younger learners often didn't realise that they could pause the game to give themselves more time to read the quiz questions. Often, the hand dexterity required to move the mouse amongst so many different on-screen locations in order to answer the quizzes was not developed enough and led to frustration. In a different study, tests were used successfully at the end of game sessions to test the child on the knowledge that had been presented during the level. Quizzes used in this manner seemed to be effective, linking the testing to the lessons in a very direct way, without impeding either education or entertainment. In this approach the student not only receives games and lessons separate from evaluations (just like they would in the classroom) but they are taught to connect the evaluation with learning and understand that testing does not just pop into the teacher's brain, but comes from structured lessons and curriculum that takes place before the testing.

An important rule for highlighting the informative content of the game is to design the ambient stimulation to enhance learning instead of distracting from it. Games generally require mood to be effective, which is traditionally established through graphics and sound. Some other examples of stimulation includes physical movement such as moving the mouse in specific ways or motion technology such as using controllers that shake. Regardless of the choice of stimulation, make sure that it is consistent with the content of the application. Music, graphics and participation should all feel natural so that it does not distract from the learning that should be taking place. Intuitive controls shift the focus away from figuring out how to navigate menus and play the game to solving problems and overcoming challenges.

The Balancing Act

As an aside, children tend to have much more fun when they use educational software with other children. Edutainment applications that are stimulating for both participants are far more successful both at entertaining children and at teaching them. Moreover, children working with a friend are much more likely to talk about a problem, feel more confident trying new things and comfortably explore new functionality.

In conclusion, there are clearly differing concerns from the differing purposes of edutainment software. If all the educational aspects are effective, if the game itself is not fun then the player will not play it, receiving no education at all. By contrast, if the application is fun, but users do not learn anything than the application is really no more than a game and cannot be considered edutainment at all. However, since edutainment products are used voluntarily and are not used strictly for completing a task, fun is an important factor. Since children learn through play, the “fun” factor and the “learning” factor have to be kept in balance all the time.

In summary, here is a short list of guidelines I have compiled for children's edutainment software based on the material covered in this blog:

1. Integrate meaningful interaction.
2. Allow for a wide range of difficulty and provide incremented challenge.
3. Include familiar symbols, graphics or character.
4. Use simple, but colourful design.
5. Clearly define what the user can interact with.
6. Keep instructions simple and straight forward.
7. Keep your game consistent with the classics.
8. Aim to make your game easy to play but hard to play well.
9. Give effective and prominently visible (and/or auditory) feedback.
10. Maintain natural and unobtrusive background stimulation.

Read More on Edutainment Usability...

• All work and no play: Measuring fun, usability, and learning in software for children
• Assessing Usability and Fun in Educational Software
• Child Computer Interaction  
• Designing for Kids
• Design Implications for Edutainment Games
• Drawing with Fun: What We Can Learn From the Children
• Evaluating the Usability of Children's Software/Applications 
• Evaluating Usability, Fun and Learning in Educational Software for Children 
• Reliability and Usability: Keys for Success in Edutainment Robotics
• Satisfaction and Learnability in Edutainment: A usability study of the knowledge game 'Laser Challenge'
• Usability Evaluation of Children's Edutainment Software 
• Using edutainment in e-learning applications: an empirical study

 

An Element of Unfairness: End User License Agreements

You Have Just Been Screwed...


Every time you want to use a piece of software, you follow a few basic steps. You probably look for the software, purchase or download the software, then install the software then use the software. Oh wait, you also probably spend a few hours doing research into the license agreement and making sure that your rights as a user are respected while using the product or service provided to you by the vendor. You don't?

If you don't read the Terms of Service or the End User License Agreement when you install software on your computer you're not alone, but you may also be at a disadvantage for doing so. In recent studies, users have been shown not to read user agreements. In one particular study, a researcher included a cash incentive for calling in at the end of a license document and no one called in until after over 3000 copies had been downloaded. Such a low proportion of users reading license agreements is worrying because it enables corporations to include surprising terms and bind the user legally to them.

Since attention was drawn to unfair license agreements earlier in the 2000's, Terms of Service agreements have made only limited improvements. Many companies still sport problematic, unfair, illegible or unclear terms, however, and with little to no form of recourse for users, corporations do not have much incentive to change their policies.  Outrageous stories about user agreements still continue in hopes of better protection for users.


Do I Really Have to Read That Thing?


Many people do not read end user license agreements.  They're long and dry and many users do not understand the terms and phrasing used.  Often they are presented in an unfriendly or intimidating way to discourage users from reading through them.  There are many reasons why someone would choose not to read the terms of service before installing a product.


Terms of use are often attached to software products that the user feels he or she needs, but terms are presented on a "take it or leave it" basis.  If software is needed, then there is no real power for the user to disagree, because you can't use the software unless you agree to the terms.  Companies with few or no competitors can write anything into their terms of service because no company will offer better terms.  Because of the perception of reading the agreement to be useless, many users do not read them.

Moreover, many users are under the impression that with so many end users corporations will either not notice if they deviate from the terms of service or that the company will not pursue them if they do notice.  With so many people using computers nowadays it is impossible to catch every single breach of user contracts, and it would be infeasible to spend the resources doing so.

Finally, most users are under the impression that there is no legal action they can take against companies because of the liability clauses that are in so many license agreements in software.  It is a misconception that all terms of service contain roughly the same content, but many people still believe it is true.


What is Wrong with Our License Agreements Right Now?


In a recent reading of some terms of service agreements from popular products accessible on the Internet, I came across some examples of the troublesome aspects of end user license agreements.  The largest problem is that corporations attempt to transfer all responsibility to the user for using their product.  If that sounds too theoretical for you, think of it this way: you go to buy a microwave oven for your family.  Once you've paid for it, brought it home, unwrapped it and set it up, you try to use it.  Instead of being able to use it, a box pops up where the numbers are with a service agreement saying that the company will not be responsible for anything that happens because of the microwave you just bought.  If it has a bug in it and fills your kitchen with radiation it is your problem for deciding to use it.  And the best part is that you can't return it because you opened the shrink wrap already which voids your ability to return the product to the store even if you don't accept the terms under which you could use the microwave.

Does that sound good?  I didn't think so.  Let me translate for you now some of the other examples of unfair content in terms of service contracts:

Microsoft Says:

"If you live in or your business is headquartered in North or South America, you're contracting with Microsoft Corp., One Microsoft Way, Redmond, WA 98052, USA, and Washington State law governs the interpretation of this contract and applies to claims for breach of it, regardless of conflict of laws principles. All other claims, including claims regarding consumer protection laws, unfair competition laws, and in tort, will be subject to the laws of your state of residence in the United States, or, if you live outside the United States, the laws of the country to which we direct your service. You and we irrevocably consent to the exclusive jurisdiction and venue of the state or federal courts in King County, Washington, USA, for all disputes arising out of or relating to this contract."


This basically states that you are not entitled to take legal action in your home country, state or city.  If you have a problem with them, you have to go to them.  They will not settle disputes anywhere but King County, Washington, USA or under any other law.  I hope you can afford plane tickets and hotel reservations...

Google Says:

"2.2 You can accept the Terms by:

(A) clicking to accept or agree to the Terms, where this option is made available to you by Google in the user interface for any Service; or
(B) by actually using the Services. In this case, you understand and agree that Google will treat your use of the Services as acceptance of the Terms from that point onwards.

2.3 You may not use the Services and may not accept the Terms if (a) you are not of legal age to form a binding contract with Google, or (b) you are a person barred from receiving the Services under the laws of the United States or other countries including the country in which you are resident or from which you use the Services."
 
If you use Google for anything you agree to a whole bunch of stuff that you are not informed of when you first see Google's homepage.  Section 2.3 states that if you are not of legal age to form a binding contract with Google than you are not allowed to use it.  Well here in Canada the legal age for creating a binding contract is 18...but I know a lot of people younger than that who use Google regularly.  Furthermore, the only people who actually read this are the people who are of legal age.  Many contracts share the problem of what constitutes as accepting an agreement. 

Foxit Reader says:

"LIMIT OF LIABILITY AND EXCLUSION OF INCIDENTAL, CONSEQUENTIAL AND CERTAIN OTHER DAMAGES.  TO THE MAXIMUM EXTENT PERMITTED BY APPLICABLE LAW, IN NO EVENT SHALL FOXIT CORPORATION, ITS AUTHORIZED RESELLERS OR THEIR SUBSIDIARIES BE LIABLE FOR ANY SPECIAL, INCIDENTAL, INDIRECT, PUNITIVE OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES WHATSOEVER (INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, DAMAGES FOR LOSS OF PROFITS OR CONFIDENTIAL OR OTHER INFORMATION, FOR BUSINESS INTERRUPTION, FOR PERSONAL INJURY, FOR LOSS OF PRIVACY, FOR FAILURE TO MEET ANY DUTY INCLUDING OF GOOD FAITH OR OF REASONABLE CARE, FOR NEGLIGENCE, AND FOR ANY OTHER PECUNIARY OR OTHER LOSS WHATSOEVER) ARISING OUT OF OR IN ANY WAY RELATED TO THE USE OF OR INABILITY TO USE THE PRODUCT, THE PROVISION OF OR FAILURE TO PROVIDE SUPPORT SERVICES, OR OTHERWISE UNDER OR IN CONNECTION WITH ANY PROVISION OF THIS LICENSE, EVEN IN THE EVENT OF THE FAULT, TORT (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE), STRICT LIABILITY, BREACH OF CONTRACT OR BREACH OF WARRANTY OF FOXIT CORPORATION, EVEN IF FOXIT CORPORATION HAS BEEN ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGES."

Basically, no matter how they screw up, they may not be held responsible.  If using your software kills you, it's your fault.  If they lose your personal information, shame on you for trusting them.  If their software causes you to lose profits, I guess you're out of luck.  Sadly, this clause is in just about every contract I've read.  No one is willing to take responsibility for their own work any more.  Personally, that gives me no confidence in the company - the fact that they are so unsure of the product's ability to meet consumer needs that they feel the need to explicitly waive themselves of the burden of reliability and dependability.

Skype says:

"7.1 In addition to this Agreement, You have to comply with the following Additional Terms when using the Skype Software, the Products and the Skype Website. We expect You to read these Additional Terms carefully, all of which are made part of this Agreement:

• The Skype Etiquette http://www.skype.com/legal/terms/etiquette provides guidelines to treat properly and respectfully the other members of Skype’s
• Skype API. You are not allowed to use the Skype API unless You comply with the API Terms at http://www.skype.com/legal/terms/api/
• Skype Online Material. You are not allowed to use the Skype Online Material unless You comply with the Online Material Terms at http://www.skype.com/company/legal/promote/materials/
• Skype payable internet communications products are provided by Skype Communications S.a.r.l. and are subject to the Terms of Service at http://www.skype.com/legal/terms/voip/
• The use of http://www.skype.com/ website is subject to the Terms of Use with Skype Technologies SA at http://www.skype.com/legal/terms/web/
• If You want to provide chargeable services to other Skype Software users through the Skype Software as a service provider, You will need to comply with the Service Provider Agreement with Skype Communications Sa.r.l. at http://www.skype.com/legal/terms/callserviceprovider .
• If you want to use Skype Premium Call Service then You will need to comply with the Terms of Service for Skype Premium Call (Beta) at http://www.skype.com/legal/terms/callservices/
• You will need to comply with the Broadcast TOS at http://www.skype.com/legal/terms/broadcast if You want to use the Skype Software in connection with any Broadcast (as defined in such Broadcast TOS)."

You are expected to read all of these documents as well.  In some cases additional documents may be referenced within referenced documents making a long chain of contracts that you are binding yourself to when you use a software product. Most people do not have the time or patience to hunt down every subsequent document that outlines how they are allowed to use their product.

Many problems exist beyond these examples.  Terms almost always give the provider an unfair advantage.  Terms of service may include the ability to modify terms at any time and without notification.  They may include mandatory access to your computer, or that you will install mandatory updates to the software subject to new terms and conditions you would be obligated to agree to but that do not exist at the moment.  Some contracts contain clauses stating that the provider may terminate the contract with you at any moment but that you may not do the same.  Some agreements may require you to submit communications in writing and confirmed as arrived, while their communications may be electronic and on the best effort system.  Clearly license agreements are written in the interest of the provider and does not provide protection for the consumer in any way.

What Can Be Done?


The problem lies in the incentive corporations have to conform to licensing regulations.  Currently there is very little in the way of laws governing what can and cannot be in an end user license agreement.  However, common sense would dictate some pretty straight forward rules.

Firstly, the license agreement must be presented to the user before any other interaction with the product occurs.  That includes websites that claim to bind users to a terms of service agreement.  License agreements should be presented in plain, easily understandable terms.

"The original English version of the Terms may have been translated into other languages. In the event of inconsistency or discrepancy between the English version and any other language version, the English language version shall prevail." should really say "The English version of this contract is the only version that is honoured."  When you cut out all that extra garbage, user agreements aren't so bad to read.

Furthermore, companies providing a service must not be able to transfer the burden of responsibility to the user.  Creators should be liable for the products they produce, because if they are not they are not pressured to build good products.  Providers must never be allowed to transfer costs to the user, in particular many contracts contain clauses covering "legal fees and unspecified expenses".  That basically says that the company can charge you for anything because you gave them a hard time.  Nice.

Finally, contracts should be evaluated on an individual basis for fairness and protection of both parties.  Communication should be the same going each way and termination of contract agreements should also be the same.  Providers and consumers should have equal rights and responsibilities.  It is the user's responsibility to use the product as it is intended, and it is the provider's responsibility to ensure that the product functions and they deliver their services as advertised.  Under no circumstances should a contract void a provider of being held responsible for their mistakes.

As a consumer it is important to read through the terms and services and make informed decisions about what you are and are not willing to accept.  A good alternative may be using open source software.  It doesn't come with any guarantees of functionality, but as is clearly shown above, neither does proprietary software.

Elements of Usability: Top 10 Pitfalls of Personas

What is a Persona?

A persona is an archetypal representation of a group of users. They are used in software design to focus the project on users rather than the system. Introduced by Alan Cooper in his book, "The Inmates are Running the Asylum", personas became a popular way to focus a team on the people who would actually be using the product. The concept of a persona is beautiful in its simplicity, which is part of why it works so well in so many different contexts. The idea is that many users will share goals, motivations, tasks, backgrounds and methods and that they can be grouped accordingly. While using this method has many benefits, there are also some drawbacks to consider as well as some mistakes to be sure to avoid.

Pitfall #1: Varied Target Audience

Designing a project for a large target audience can make creating personas extremely difficult because of the amount of information there is to synthesize. Generating personas based on every single user group that may user your product is tedious and often impossible. An example of this scenario is a website with an international audience.

Solutions:

Take a look at your product and divide it up into segments. Choose the most important sections and create personas for them first and then see if you can interpolate from there. If the project is unable to be broken up or the division does not reduce the target audience, then what may be missing is a change of thinking. While international customers are varied, their motivations and goals are more important than their demographic. What does your product do? Try and classify broader categories based on why users are using your product and not their demographics.

Pitfall #2: Too Many or Too Few?

Finding the perfect number of personas can be tricky. Having too many can make the work more confusing, contrary to the goal of clarifying user perspectives to the team. On the other hand, having too few personas means that the user population is being unfairly slotted into specific categories and some user groups may be missed entirely.

Solutions:

If you have too many personas look at all the user groups that you've identified and see if you can amalgamate any of them. Generally you should try not to have more than five personas for a given project, with three being the most common. If you don't have enough, you may need to do more research. Review what you are looking for very carefully. Are you asking the right questions? Are your questions open-ended enough to produce an appropriate variety of questions while still allowing you to identify trends?

Pitfall #3: Assumptions and Stereotypes

Experts and stakeholders tend to have developed assumptions about the target audience that may not be verified. Everyone has an opinion of what they think users will want, but writing personas without verifying claims is dangerous. Personas that are not real are not useful because they do not accurately represent the user group. Also be mindful of filling in the gaps of research with stereotypes. You may discover many motivations that lead you to classify a group, but be careful when adding details that are not directly supported by your data. Fake personas produce fake results.

Solutions:

The only real way to completely avoid this problem is to do your research. Make sure that all the details you add to your personas are validated through quantifiable means. If you are on a tighter research budget you may want to consider focusing your research on the qualities that you are going to use to determine your persona groupings. Filler details that are not used to create categories can be taken from smaller samplings. For example, a group of people wanting software that allows them to perform certain tasks is more likely to be important than the extra details. Of course, you still need to be careful when determining what, if any, information is actually filler.

Pitfall #4: Overwhelming Information

A well balanced and well written persona lends insights into the mindset of users. A long persona with an overwhelming amount of detail, however, can detract from the overall picture. Too much detail can create conflict rather than unity amongst a group as each individual dissects the same ideas differently. Furthermore, some may have difficulty determining what information is relevant for which discussions because of the sheer amount of information available. Increasing the amount your team has to read also increases the chances that they will not read it thoroughly or even at all.

Solutions:

Keep your personas to a maximum of one page in length and choose your layout carefully. Consider using bullets and headers for some portions of the information and paragraphs and sentences for others. Adding an image can also spruce up a persona and keep the information more concise. When actually writing your persona examine each sentence and idea carefully. Ask yourself what that fact tells you about the persona and whether or not that matches the research you saw. Think of how that information would be useful. If you can't think of good answers, remove it.

Pitfall #5: Discomfort with Personas

Some individuals find creating and discussing imaginary “people” to be uncomfortable. They may find it awkward to try to create an individual based on many people or might not be comfortable with descriptive narrative. Individuals whose first language is not English may find personas confusing and difficult to understand and work with.

Solutions:

Remove personal references from your personas to make them more conceptual. Use titles such as “Sales Manager” or “Sports Enthusiast” to describe your personas instead of naming them. Shorten personas and use directed, clear language. You can also change your formatting of the information to include charts or bulleted lists more than sentences and paragraphs. Some situations may also benefit from removing images so as to dissociate with stereotypes.

Pitfall #6: Lack of Focus

It is very easy to slip away from the true focus of your persona and into user design specifics. By allowing specific design implementations to be included in a persona, you remove all other options and discourage creative thinking in a team. Allowing people to have their own ideas of how to best serve a persona is part of designing the best product.

Solutions:

Check for sentences that describe software specifics and remove them. Instead of writing “Jane appreciates being able to hover over a misspelled word and have it corrected” rephrase the sentence to capture the challenge instead of the implementation: “Jane is not confident in her spelling and needs help correcting her papers.”

Pitfall #7: Expenses and Time

Writing accurate and useful personas requires some time and expense. Researching personas can involve large amounts of people and large amounts of data analysis. Experts may need to be hired to do certain jobs. The more accuracy you want, the more it will cost and the longer it will take.

Solutions:

Make a plan for exactly what you are trying to achieve and within what budget. Brainstorm methods of attaining what you are looking for and evaluate each method on 3 categories: Effectiveness at gathering the required information, Efficiency with which it can be performed and Feasibility of costs required. While there is no way to entirely solve the problem of expense and time, there are certainly ways to minimize it.

Pitfall #8: Statistical Personas

Some personas are poorly written using statistics exclusively as the base. Creating a persona based on statistical or demographic data instead of qualitative information is of very little use in designing a project. The most important information within a persona are the thought patterns and motivations that defines a user group. Sometimes motives line up with demographics, but many times they do not.

Solutions:

Consider research methods that give you more detailed and in-depth analysis such as interviews, site visits or questionnaires. Understand what it is you are trying to learn when you are planning your research so that you get usable results. Think very carefully about how you intend to use the results of your research before doing it. Don't be afraid to include a little demographic information as filler for a richer persona, but be mindful not to create stereotypical characters.

Pitfall #9: Elastic Personas

An elastic persona is more like an imaginary friend than a persona. They are typically poorly defined and every member on the team may have a different idea of who they are trying to design for. In this situation personas can easily become validators. Be careful that your team does not begin to invent reasons for sympathetic personas to be accommodating or supportive of their decisions instead of using the personas to drive discussion of solutions.

Solutions:

There are generally two problems that lead to elastic personas: poor definition and lack of participation. The first, poor definition, means that you have included too little information in your description and most of the details used by designers were “inferred”. Make sure that your language is clear. Check for other interpretations by asking others to read it and asking them to describe the persona. The second problem, lack of participation, comes in a variety of ways. It may be that some people don't read or help create personas, or that people do not reference them frequently enough or make them central parts of their design discussions. You can encourage use of personas by making them the focus of meetings and setting an example by using them to generate ideas. Arrange to have copies distributed to each team member and consider posting copies in locations where the team meets frequently. If you have members on your team that are not as experienced with personas, you may want to consider running a workshop that covers the basics of using personas. Include some fun, ice-breaker exercises based on personas to get everyone excited to start using them more regularly.

Pitfall #10: Getting Proof

Even with research, proving that a persona is accurate is difficult because of the nature of the research. Using quantitative methods will give you a good picture of what users are doing, but not why, a crucial question when creating personas. When using qualitative methods, distilling that information into hard proof can be challenging. Some people require hard proof to use personas, however, which is hard to come by if you are limited strictly to numbers.

Solutions:

Look for frequency of information. If 50% of those surveyed said that they used your software for one reason and 50% said they used it for a different reason, that is hard proof that a division based on these two groups might be feasible. You may also want to consider using gradient scales which can be analyzed numerically.

References

A Look At Some Common Usability Elements by Aalap Doshi
Approaches to Creating Personas by Steve Mulder
Conceptual Design by Saul Greenberg
Designing and Specifying Content Requirements by Victor Gonzalez
Evaluations of Attitudes Towards Thinking and Learning by Andrew Laghos
Personas Compared to Target Market Research by Linda Morton
Personas: How Many is too Many? by Charles Sue-Wah-Sing
Personas and User Roles by Larry Constantine
The Inmates are Running the Asylum by Alan Cooper
'Thick Personas' - Using Ethnographic Methods for Persona Development by An Jacobs, Katrien Dreeson and Jo Pierson

An Element of Parenting: Young Children and Home Computers

Skimming the Surface

As a teacher of young children, I see many times in a week just how complex children are. Every day I work with them, I understand a sliver more about how they work and a ton more about how much I really don't know about they work. So it should come as no surprise that trying to decipher the effects of something as vast and complex as the Internet and technology in general on something as complicated and extraordinary as a child and all children in general would be next to impossible.

All children are different. Each child has his or her own view point, his or her own understanding of the world and will interact with technology in a different way. Many researchers have seen, for example, that males are more likely to be interested in video games while more females are more likely to be interested in social networking sites. Furthermore – childhood is a large time period. The effect of a computer in the home is substantially different on a five year old than it is on a twelve year old, yet both could viably be considered part of “childhood”.

The purpose of this article is to give a broad overview of some of the issues parents of young school-aged children face in a culture where computers and the Internet are inescapable elements of society.


Academic Influence

Computers are often heralded as the ultimate educational resource. Cursive writing is no longer taught in all schools, and many teachers require that all assignments be typed up instead of being submitted in handwriting. Furthermore, the computer gives the user access to the Internet, a wealth of information for students to access as well as a portal for other educational resources. Having a computer in the home can increase academic success in students who use them.

Computers can extend classroom work to the home and reinforce concepts taught at school in the home. Many schools have websites where students can access homework, schedules and resources for their schoolwork. Furthermore, computers encourage independent learning because students work independently at a machine. Having a home computer can also encourage problem solving and technological adaptability skills which are necessary as children grow up and enter a workforce that becomes more and more technology saturated every year. Moreover, if a child is confused about school work, the computer provides excellent opportunities to communicated with teachers and peers to get help.

Clearly, technology can offer some wonderful gains to a child's academic development, but the truth of the matter is that having a computer in the home is not enough to increase a student's performance in school. A study done in Romania showed that technology in the home is used more often for gaming and social networking than it is used for school, and students with access to a computer actually showed a decline in academic progress in reading and math.


Social Influence

While computers were originally analyzed for their effect of the academic progress of young children, the effects on a child's social development is equally important. The long term effects of home computers on social skills are still unknown largely because the technology is still so young. Many have theorized, however about whether the effect is positive or negative. Most people would agree that breaking up with a partner by using a text message or Facebook message is not appropriate, but this example is a surprisingly common occurrence amongst teens who never learned proper web etiquette as a child.

Those who claim that home computers are negative for social development point out the fact that many children using computers use them in solitude away from face to face contact with their peers.

Texting, email and posting messages are extremely different than regular face to face to contact and some worry that children who spend too much time with a machine and not enough with other children will develop poor social skills and an inability to communicate with others effectively. Children learn essential skills such as empathy and sympathy through imaginative play but computers do not offer opportunities to engage in activities such as pretend.

Furthermore, many children are changing their definition of friend. Many children have hundreds of friends on social networking sites and have trouble distinguishing the difference between their acquaintances online and their true friends with faces, names and personalities. What kind of person will a child grow up to be if they have only shallow relationships and more of them? Many argue that a lack of deep and meaningful relationships lead to adults incapable of deep and meaningful relationships.

In contrast, some argue that home computers are beneficial for developing social skills in young children. For example, email and social networking sites help children to stay in contact with friends and family that are not close enough to visit frequently. These mediums are also text based, meaning that children have to learn to read and compose sentences in order to use them. Literacy is a key component to communication and communication is the foundation of social skills.

Beyond strictly developing or not developing, the impact of a home computer on a child's social life can be far more varied than simply how much contact a child has with other real people. A growing problem among school children is cyber bullying. Cyber bullies take verbal and social bullying (i.e. exclusion, threats, insults, humiliation, etc...) online. Receiving violent threats or hurtful insults online is becoming a serious problem in schools, since many children are not learning how to be responsible online citizens. Some children who are online bullies are much nicer in person than they are online (Though many are not). Many children who take part in these activities say that they feel more comfortable being mean online because it is impersonal.



Physical Influence

Another key aspect of child development is their physical body. As an adult, we are not growing and changing in the same way that children are. The first decade shapes the way a child's body is able to function for the rest of their life and sitting in front of a computer for too long can cause physical as well as social and academic damage.

The largest physical problem related to home computers is obesity. Children who are sedentary using a computer too long are not as active and can develop weight problems related to a lack of exercise. Obviously having a computer in the home is not the only factor in determining whether or not a child is active overall, but it is also very evident that children who focus more on technology than activity are more prone to obesity and the problems associated with it.

Other physical problems that have been associated with children using technology too frequently are vision difficulty, frequent and painful headaches, difficulty sleeping, attention deficit disorder and repetitive motion strain. Vision difficulty and headaches are often caused by sitting too close to the screen or by staring at it too long. Since adult eyes are developed, the eyes will tire after repetitive use of a computer screen, but a child's eyes are still developing and too much screen time can deter crucial progress in the development of the eyes and proper vision. Difficulty sleeping and attention deficit disorder arise from over-stimulation.

Lastly, the development of important skeletal and muscular tissue can be delayed by sitting too long in front of the computer or television. This growth is extremely important in a child's development, as it can never be made up for. A child whose body is damaged by sitting for hours at a time can never be repaired because it was never able to grow in the way that it was meant to.


Tips for Parents

The computer has benefits and problems along a broad range of topics. The only way for children to receive the positive elements of computers and not the negative ones, parents have to be active and engaged in how their child grows up with technology. By discussing expectations, setting and following rules and supervising online behaviour, parents can foster technologically responsible adults.

1. Encourage your children not to go online without having a plan. Many people make the mistake of going online without actually needing anything. When your child uses the Internet, make sure that they know what they are looking for and where they can find it. Having a plan reduces time spent in front of the screen and teaches how to be responsible about using the Internet.

2. Give frequent reminders to do school work before gaming or social networking.

3. Talk about Internet safety. Remind them not to engage in discussions with anyone they do not know or to give out any personally identifying information. Talk about having responsible discussions with peers online, and emphasize that anything put online can be tracked and remembered.

4. Keep your home computer in a central location and do not put computers in bedrooms or offices where the user is isolated from the rest of the family while on it. Having the computer in a central location enforces the idea that computers do not have to be anti-social.

5. Limit the amount of time children spend on the computer. Many recommend limiting total recreational screen time (including monitors, televisions etc...) to an hour. If children need additional time in front of the screen for homework, make sure that they are using their time productively. Consider setting a limit on school computer time as well if it becomes too much for your child.

6. Encourage balanced time use – if you spend one hour a day on the computer, spend an hour of day playing outside as well.

7. Bookmark safe sites. Many sites featuring adult content have names based off of misspellings of safe sites.

8. Be a good role model. Abide by the rules and boundaries set by you and your family.