This study's main goal is to produce a set of guidelines intended to aid a programmer who wishes to build a computer application targeted at children ranging from 5 to 7 years old

Campos, J. Creissac

Mano, Alexandre

Universidade do Minho: RepositoriUM

A study about usability criteria on computer interfaces for childrenAlexandre ManoUniversidade do Minho, Bragaamano@netcabo.ptJosé C. CamposUniversidade do Minho, Bragajose.campos@di.uminho.ptThis  study’s  main  goal  is  to  produce  a  set  of  guidelinesintended  to  aid  a  programmer  who  wishes  to  build  acomputer application targeted at children ranging from 5 to 7years  old.  The  guidelines  are  going  to  be  tested  within  aselected  group  of  test-interfaces  purposefully  built  for  thestudy and the test-subjects will be children in the appropriateage-groups.This  study  intends  to  represent  a  novel  approach  to  thedevelopment user interfaces for children.  The ideas behindthe  guidelines  come  from  psychology,  particularlycognitivism,  instead  of  the  usual  empirical  methods.Although empirical  design guidelines are widely available,they usually have no theoretical basis. The theoretical basis required comes from the work of JeanPiaget.  In  his  work  Piaget  decomposed  the  child’sdevelopment  in 4 stages:  sensory-motor  (birth  to 2  years),preoperational (2 to 6/7 years), concrete operational (7 to 12years) and formal operations (12 years on).The features ofchildren’s  thoughts  can  be  summarised  in  a  set  ofcharacteristics and these are modelled into questions that canbe answered by giving the interfaces for children to try out.The  features  embraced  in  the  study  are:  egocentrism,transduction,  centration  and  static  representation,  problemswith  conservation,  juxtaposition  and  syncretism,  problemsoperating  classes  and  relations.  After  considering  thesefeatures and the impact on the way the child will perceiveany given interface, the following questions were extracted:1.Are  children  able  to  recognize  an  image  link  in  theinterface,  or  are  links  that  mix  image  and  text  moreefficient?Interfaces tend to link ideas to images or symbols. We’ll  tryto discover if children understand this association the sameway  as  adults.  If  they  can’t,  it  can  be  attributable  toegocentrism (difficulty in understanding what the interface’sdeveloper  was  thinking)  or  transduction  (incorrectassociation between ideas and images).2.Are children capable of using the keyboard correctly andefficiently?All keyboard keys are upper-case. If children are centered onthe  form of  the  character  on  the  keyboard,  they  may  notassociate it to the lower-case characters (centration). On theother  hand,  they  may  have  trouble  understanding  that  thesame key can perform different actions.3.If the application is a learning tool, should the controls inmultiple  windows  be  located  randomly  or  should  theyallow the user to learn a sequence of events?In a learning tool, the emphasis should be on the acquisitionof some kind ok knowledge, rather than the manipulation ofthe  interface  itself.  Relations  between  controls  must  becarefully  planned,  so that  children  will  not  be able to  usesome kind  of  transductive  thought  to  discover  unintendedrelationships.4.Are children able to associate images at the interface withthe actions initiated by them?If an image starts a set of actions, can the user understand allthe  actions  involved?  Children  must  be  able  to  detect  therelation between different actions (syncretism) and classifythem in groups and subgroups.5.Can  children  recognize  the  necessity  to  undo  someactions in order to perform a goal?Children  may  have  trouble  understanding  the  “undo”actions (static representation and centration).6.Can  children  repeat  successful  actions  within  theinterface?Same as the question above. To develop this skill, childrenmust  “de-center”  their  thought  and  understand  theinterface’s  point of view.7.Are children capable of solving a problem that requiresseveral independent steps?To  do  so,  they  need  to  overcome  conservation  andsyncretism  problems,  and  to  relate  the  steps  in  the  rightorder.8.Which is better: a help link, or explicit help printed onthe interface?Again, children must take into account the interface’s  needsand not their own, to understand whether help is necessary. 9.Is there a limit to the number of interactive controls on aninterface?Children must overcome egocentrism to perceive the needsof the application and to understand that some controls havenothing to do with the goal they are seeking. 10.Will  children  understand  an  interface  divided  incategories?Only if they can classify and order the actions.Right  now  the  test-interfaces  intended  to  address  thesequestions  are  being  developed.  When they  are  finished,  anumber of subjects will be gathered to perform the tests. An extended version of  the paper is available,  by request,from  the  authors.  The  material  in  this  handout  can  bequoted.Fopex 2004 – Fórum de Psicologia Experimental (Braga, Portugal) Outubro, 2004

A study about usability criteria on computer interfaces for children

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Universidade do Minho: RepositoriUM