Wednesday 14 March 2007

7 - "Test Design on Persona1(Parents of Britney Jones)"

We have test driven our product with three of our target personas and found some amazing facts, which has led to further improve the design of our prospective product. This is what parents of Britney Jones, had to say:

Child's Age: 19 months
Child's Gender: Female

"The Design"

Considering the design, would your child be physically able to…

  • Hold the console (in any way)? Yes
  • Hold the console using the handles? Yes
  • Use the pen? Yes
  • Use the buttons? Yes
  • Use the camera? No
  • Use the touch screen? Yes
  • Manipulate the slider? Yes

Considering the design would your child able to grasp how the following parts work…

  • The pen? Immediately / After Exploration / No
  • The eraser (on the back of the pen)? Immediately / After Exploration / No
  • The buttons (forward and back)? Immediately / After Exploration/ No
  • The camera? Immediately / After Exploration / No
  • The touch screen? Immediately / After Exploration / No
  • The slider? Immediately / After Exploration / No

Keeping in mind the product will be water resistant / proof, in terms of safety do you feel you would be comfortable letting your child use it? Yes / No

If your answer was No could you please explain your answer…

How do you rate the following aspects of the design, considering them from the perspective of your child…

  • General appearance Bad 1 2 3 4 5 Excellent
  • Size Bad 1 2 3 4 5 Excellent
  • Shape Bad 1 2 3 4 5 Excellent
  • Weight Bad 1 2 3 4 5 Excellent

We understand that children between 18 months and 4 years generally like bold bright colours, however, we have not been able to come up with a set colour scheme for the product yet.

Do you think that it would be best for the console to be a single set colour scheme, or a changeable / selectable one?

Set colour scheme / Changeable or Selectable

If you answered ‘Set colour scheme’, please tell us what you would like as the main colour, or describe in more detail how you would like the product to be coloured…

We want the colour scheme to be set to Pink with butterflies.

If you answered Changeable or Selectable, please circle which of the following you think would be the best

  • Product to come in a variety of set colours, so parents can pick the best for their child
      • Bad 1 2 3 4 5 Excellent
  • Product to have a variety of changeable colour cases
      • Bad 1 2 3 4 5 Excellent
  • Product colouration to digitally change to suit the different applications*
      • Bad 1 2 3 4 5 Excellent

* This would involve the casing of the product to be transparent, with image projecting technology beneath, like that in a plasma screen monitor, which would be able to display images that would either relate directly to the application being run by showing images, or at least show different colours for different applications

"Stories and Nursery Rhymes"

  • How do you rate the educational value of this application for your child?
      • Educational 1 2 3 4 5 Very Educational
  • How entertaining do you think your child would find this application?
      • Educational 1 2 3 4 5 Very Educational
  • How easy to use do you think your child would find this application?
      • Educational 1 2 3 4 5 Very Educational
  • Please specify if there is anything in particular you like/dislike about this application…
    • I like the fact that the console reads the stories to my daughter.
  • Are there any improvements / changes you think would be valuable to this application?
    • Cartoons and more animation films would be a good add on.

"Drawing and Colouring"

  • How do you rate the educational value of this application for your child?
      • Not 1 2 3 4 5 Very
  • How entertaining do you think your child would find this application?
      • Not 1 2 3 4 5 Very
  • How easy to use do you think your child would find this application?
      • Not 1 2 3 4 5 Very
  • Please specify if there is anything in particular you like/dislike about this application…
    • I would like to add more colours to the application.
  • Are there any improvements / changes you think would be valuable to this application?
    • More Colours

"Alphabets, Words and Numbering"

  • How do you rate the educational value of this application for your child?
      • Not 1 2 3 4 5 Very
  • How entertaining do you think your child would find this application?
      • Not 1 2 3 4 5 Very
  • How easy to use do you think your child would find this application?
      • Not 1 2 3 4 5 Very
  • Please specify if there is anything in particular you like/dislike about this application…
    • I like the fact that console teaches spellings to the kids. It could be slightly boring for drawing kid's attention.
  • Are there any improvements / changes you think would be valuable to this application?

"Camera and Gallery"

  • How do you rate the educational value of this application for your child?
      • Not 1 2 3 4 5 Very
  • How entertaining do you think your child would find this application?
      • Not 1 2 3 4 5 Very
  • How easy to use do you think your child would find this application?
      • Not 1 2 3 4 5 Very
  • Please specify if there is anything in particular you like/dislike about this application…
    • It allows the child to take pictures.
  • Are there any improvements / changes you think would be valuable to this application?

"Music and Compositions"

  • How do you rate the educational value of this application for your child?
      • Not 1 2 3 4 5 Very
  • How entertaining do you think your child would find this application?
      • Not 1 2 3 4 5 Very
  • How easy to use do you think your child would find this application?
      • Not 1 2 3 4 5 Very
  • Please specify if there is anything in particular you like/dislike about this application…
    • I like the fact that this is actually cheaper than lessons. However, it could be noisy if the child keeps on playing repeatedly.
  • Are there any improvements / changes you think would be valuable to this application?

"Overall Software"

Please tell us which of the applications you consider to be the most important to the product, and what you think your child would enjoy and use most, by ordering them from 1 to 5 below, 1 meaning the most important and 5 being the least important…

Most Important to you Child's Preference
  • Stories and Nursery Rhymes 1 4
  • Drawing and Colouring In 2 1
  • Alphabet, Words and Numbers 4 5
  • Camera and Gallery 3 2
  • Music 5 3

Do you think your child would be interested in the ability to print out pictures that the draw, colour in or take using the camera? Yes / No

Are there any other areas of your child’s education you would like to see tackled by this product?

Do you have any ideas or suggestions for any further applications that you would like to see included in this product? More Games

"Parent Console Interaction"

Would you like to be able to fully control what difficulty levels of the applications would go onto the product? Yes / No


Would you prefer to manage what is on the console via a PC / Mac or on the console itself?
PC or Mac / On the Console

Would you feel comfortable downloading new media for the console from the internet (either through a computer or the console directly depending on your previous answer) or would you prefer it to be available via disc? Internet / Disc


How much would you value the ability to control what your child can do on the console via a remote control? This would allow you to turn the console off, control the volume and give you the ability to lock it within certain applications.

    • Not Valuable 1 2 3 4 5 Very Valuable


"Conclusion"

  • How would you rate the overall educational value product?
    • Not Educational 1 2 3 4 5 Very Educational
  • How would you rate the usability of the product for children?
    • Not Usable 1 2 3 4 5 Very Usable
  • How would you rate the overall entertainment appeal of the product to your child?
    • Not Entertaining 1 2 3 4 5 Very Entertaining
  • What would you value more in this product, education for your child or entertainment for your child?
    • Educational 1 2 3 4 5 Entertainingl
  • What would you consider a reasonable price for this product?
    • Under £30 £30-40 £40 -50 £50-60 £60 -70 £70-80 Over £80
  • How interested would you be in this product?
    • Not Interested1 2 3 4 5 Very Interested

  • Any Further comments? I think its amazing.

Although this product has fascinated Britney's parents, however we think that they are looking for an entertaining product rather than more educational at this stage at a low cost. The reasons are quite clear and one of them being the age group at which we are are targeting our product on. The survey has also revealed that kids at 19 months respond in a different manner to technology rather than to a 48 months old. Having said all this, the parents were actually quite impressed by the physical design and have no concerns having their daughter to explore our product. They were a bit apprehensive about the size and weight of the product seeing Britney's age and didn't want the changeable/selectable colour scheme on the console. They were pleased with the stories and nursery ryhme section but not as much with alphabets/numbering at this stage. The camera functionality actually quite appealed them and they also liked the colouring in section. They were not too keen on music section and thought that it could be more noisy than anything for their child to occupy with at this stage.
We have learnt various facts from this survey on our first target persona, which has helped us to re-think some of our features for this age group. We are also in the process of shifting our target age group so the idea of our educational dominant product can be more focused and be used by as many people in one targeted range.



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