The Miffy Tablet Usability Test
Remco Pijpers, CEO of Mijn Kind Online and POSCON Network Member interviewed Wouter Sluis-Thiescheffer, KidsRnD
Can you tell me more about the Nijntje project?
The Miffy Tablet
Usability Test was conducted by me in 2012 with User Intelligence. The study was
setup to find out about the usability of tablet applications for very young
users (<6). Miffy (Nijntje) has iconic status in the Netherlands and is internationally
famous. My colleagues and me thought that an iconic character in an app will
indefinitely attract attention and it was assumed it would set a high standard
upon its release.
The app landscape in
2012 was (and still is) quite rough, especially for the very young and their
parents. App catalogues (like Apple’s appstore and Google’s Play) did not have
a clear age indication, nor were the categories providing clear direction. For
example the term “educational” was used for both “useful in the educational
setting” and for “this app will teach your child something new”. Alternatives
for making a choice, like review sites, were released every day, each with
their own review process, target group and rating system. Making an informed
choice is therefore a laboursome process. So how were parents supposed to find
an appropriate app?
The release of “Miffy
in the Garden” was a relief in that sense. The character Miffy is connected
with a clear age indication, safe and appropriate content is guaranteed. The
app was a popular download from day 1. It was also a very well timed release, the
public press started to draw attention to the fact that very young children
were experienced tablet users. YouTube was starting to fill up with examples of
excited parents showing babies as young as 2 months old interacting with a
tablet.
However a structural
approach to developing guidelines for the usability of a tablet by the very
young had yet to be developed. Therefore I thought it would make an interesting
case to subject the first release of Miffy to a usability test with 2-4 year
olds.
Can you briefly explain the app “Miffy in the Garden”?
Miffy in the Garden
is an app rich in different activities. The app contains the interactive
picture book “Miffy in the Garden” and three games: (1) counting carrots; (2)
shadow game and (3) make your own garden.
The book can be read
to you with the prerecorded voice, it can be read by the child itself and it
can be read accompanied by a custom recorded voice.
With that
functionality, the supports two usage scenario’s. (1) A caretaker (e.g. a
parent or older child) reading the book “Miffy in the Garden” to and with a child
and (2) the child using the iPad on his/her own.
So, what did you do exactly and how did you test?
The app was tested with
seven children, two 2-year olds, two 3-year olds and three 4-year olds. Since I
was mostly interested in the usability for young children, I only tested the
second scenario, a child using the iPad on his/her own.
The two-year olds
were tested in the home environment, the older children were tested in the
usability lab. To keep the children comfortable in the one-on-one setting, the
parent was always close by and visibly present to the child. Naturally, the
parents were asked not to interfere with the activities and responses of their
child.
The children were
asked to perform three tasks: to find and launch the app, to play each game and
to read the book.
What kind of issues did you find?
Overall, the Miffy app
was very well designed. The visual language, the animations and transitions are
clear and calm matching the Miffy style. The voice over (and reading voice) is
recorded in a very high quality, crisp and clear, calm and comforting
throughout the app. The quality of the voice is very important for this young
age group as they are in the middle of their language development.
Also, all children
found it easy to find and launch the app. They were all familiar with the “swipe
to unlock” bar and flipped through the pages looking for the Miffy Icon to
launch the app. The icon was available from a page.
However, the two and three year olds had considerable
problems to go through the splash screen.
They expected that
the character would take them to the next step, as they tapped on Miffy,
ignoring the country flags. Although it is understandable from a business point
of view (one app for all stores), two- and three year old children cannot be expected
to read nor to understand country flags. They would ask the parent for help or
would simply give up.
Another important issue was found in the games. The
younger children found the “fruit shadow game” slightly too difficult. The two
year olds and one three year old had a tendency to use multiple fingers (some
from one hand and some from both hands) or use one finger and lean on the
screen with the remainder of their hand. The fruits would not respond very well
to the gestures of the two year olds.
Also, the
multi-finger input would sometimes lead to unwanted behavior. In some cases the
app closed and in others the app changed to the previously opened app. The four year olds
found the games too simple and were easily bored.
Finally what is
important to mention is that when using the iPad in the home environment. For
the two- and three-year olds the iPad is large and heavy device. When reading
from the iPad on the couch they often need one hand to support the iPad in the
right viewing angle while they interact with the other.
What changed and what did not after that first
release?
In subsequent
releases of the app the app improved on accounting for the motor skills for the
very young. The Miffy app will not allow a swipe from the Miffy app to a
previously opened app directly, allowing a two year old for example to accidentally
send emails. Also, the app will not close any more after a grasping gesture.
And the accuracy for controlling the games has been improved.
The splash screen
remained the same and so did the inability to recover from accidentally
starting the record functionality.
So in general, how do you go about when testing with
young children?
First I estimate what
kind of information I need and whether the children in the target age group can
provide me with this type of information. In the Miffy case, it was important
to find information about the children’s behavior. Therefore it was crucial to
observe the children directly.
In other cases, when Ì
want to have a conversation about motivations, or when I want to test with a
functional design I consider to work with experts about the user group.
Children in this age have too short a concentration span to go through an hour
of usability testing. In addition, their verbal skills are not yet matured
enough to reflect reliably on what they do. So, instead of children I involve for
example parents, kindergarten teachers etcetera. These experts are then asked
to go through the application on behalf of the children with a validated
evaluation method.
When working with
young children directly it is essential that they are comfortable in the
testing environment. In the lab setting I often play introductory games with
the children while their parents are close by. Once the child is comfortable
with the test moderator, I often ask the parents to move a bit more into the
background. Testing in the home environment is a good alternative.
Children are
sensitive to power-structures in the adult-child setting. This can influence a
test heavily as children feel the need to “do it right” or to give “the right
answer”. To soften this effect even more, I sometimes work with more children
in one setting. For example in focus groups or in a peer tutoring setting. Peer
tutoring puts one child in the role of a teacher, teaching a younger child what
an app is about. This setting is very resourceful. The explanations of the
teaching child provides insights in the mental model of the app for that child,
coping strategies when stuck etc. The younger child provides insights in what
is intuitive and what is not.
When working with
children in a group setting there is even more to take into account, for
example age differences, gender differences and group size. Homogeneous groups
are recommended, both in age and gender. Children are very sensitive to age
differences and a difference of two years can affect their behavior already.
Similarly, children of around five to eight like to be in same-gender groups as
the other gender is not appreciated. Children older than twelve years of age
are often best consulted in same-gender
groups for opposite reasons. Concerning group size, I often work with five to
eight children in one group. A smaller number often results in parallel
interviews rather than a group, a larger group is hard to control.
The findings of the usability study became part of our presentation Tablets and Kids. Released by User Intelligence and published on SlideShare.
The context of use is most informative about the effect for example:
- motor skills proficiency on the gestures,
- the size of the children vs the size the tablet, and
- the usage scenario
- single vs supported usage,
- usage on a table vs usage on a couch,
- usage as first screen vs second screen
- usage with pawns or with fingers
- etc.
Provide a clear app store description
- Reinforce children’s mental models
- Support children’s motor skills
- Allow for accidental success
- Integrate complexity to address children at different stages of development
Mind the edges, they are often used to control the tablet, not so much the app.
Contact
KidsRnD
Wouter Sluis-Thiescheffer
wouter@kidsrnd.com (website in development)
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