Usability Testing with Children

According to Rogers, Sharp, and Preece (2011f) the goal of usability testing is to test whether the product being developed is usable by the intended user population to achieve the tasks for which it was designed (p. 476). The tasks, for which it was designed, was to make children feel safer when receiving a cancer diagnosis. This would be a difficult aspect to measure. The best way would probably be to test the prototype with a diversity of children when receiving the diagnosis and compare their experience of cancer with the experience of children who did get the diagnosis without using the prototype.

Even with this approach the validity of the findings would be questionable because of different factors like: different children reacting differently, the child’s prior knowledge about cancer, the communication methods of the doctor, the child’s understanding and concentration, parents’ reactions etc. This approach would, however, not be feasible due to both ethical issues and time limit of the project.

The goal of the usability testing was instead to get an indication to whether a digital story application could be helpful in the process of receiving a cancer diagnosis. To uncover this, the prototype was tested with children who had experienced receiving a cancer diagnosis. For the digital story application to be helpful its interaction design and content should also work well, which was evaluated. As one of the research questions regards the interaction design this was also a main focus of the evaluation.

To be prepared for usability testing with children, the guidelines made by usability engineers at Microsoft, Hanna et al. (1997), were followed to the highest extent possible. In usability testing a combination of methods is often used to collect data (Rogers et al., 2011f). Two main methods were used: observation and interview. During the interview a method for expressing experience through use of images were also applied, AXE.

3.4.2.1 Observation

The first part of the usability testing was to observe the children when using the proto- type. The technique participant observation was used. This involves the observer taking part in the situation is such way that the test-subjects are aware of this (Oates,2006b). Using this technique the role of the observer could either be overt, the one observed knows the observer is doing research, or covert, the observer takes a role as a normal person. The observer’s role in this observation was overt. This was assumed to work best since the tests were conducted in controlled settings.

There are also several types of participant observation. The type used was participant- observer, which includes being an observer with the possibility to participate in the situation (Oates,2006b). This observation type made it possible for children to feel free to ask questions if they were unsure of anything. It was assumed to be less intimidat- ing for the children as it allowed for relaxed communication between the test-subject

and the observer and was therefore chosen. It was also chosen as many of the guide- lines in “Guidelines for usability testing with children” by Hanna et al. (1997) included communicating with the children during the usability tests.

During the observation difficulties with the interaction design was noted, as well as facial expressions indicating user experience. The actions on the screen were recorded to allow the researcher to go through it in more detail at a later time.

3.4.2.2 Structured Interviews

After the test-subject had gone through the story a method was used to gather qualita- tive information. Research has found that children from the age of six have the cognitive and language capabilities to be interviewed (Rich, 1968; Yarrow, 1960; referenced in Docherty and Sandelowski,1999). Interview was therefore chosen as method for gather- ing qualitative information regarding the interaction design, as well as the test-subject’s thoughts around whether this tool could be helpful in the process of receiving a cancer diagnosis.

The type of interview used was structured interviews. Structured interviews are identified by pre-determined, standardized and identical questions for every interviewee (Oates, 2006a). This seemed to fit best for this purpose in order to compare the answers between the testers, and at the same time allow for more detailed answers than a questionnaire. Audio recording was used to allow the interviewer to have full focus on the process of the interview.

3.4.2.3 Anticipated eXperience Evaluation

Anticipated eXperience Evaluation (AXE) is an approach for evaluating concept ideas at an early stage, using contrasting images-pairs with a scale between them, to stimulate participants in reflecting on their experience of the concept. Reasons for using images is that it is difficult to describe experiences with words and that words can be interpreted in endless ways (Gegner & Runonen, 2012). Even though AXE should be used at an early stage, it was seen to be relevant at the stage of evaluation as well since the goal of the method is to measure experience. As the study was done with children a simplified version of AXE was used. The children were presented with two contrasting images, one of which illustrated the user experience goal, and one which illustrated the contrast of

the goal. The children were then expected to pick the one they felt best depicted their experience of using the prototype.

The images used within this method was mainly found on Internet by searching for images illustrating the user experience goals. The available selection was limited due to copyright.