Five things you should consider when testing with children.

In one of the last projects I worked on I had the opportunity to conduct usability testing with children between 6 and 12 years old. In this article I present five things you should consider when working with children.  

1. Neutralize preconditions. 

The conditions or biases that children bring to the testing sessions tend to come from two main sources: from their own ability to fantasize and from their parents’ influence. The former is a normal behavior for certain ages, especially for children between 6 and 12. With regard to parents, we must have in mind that they are usually the ones who tell the children what they will be doing during the test and while doing this they might build up expectations or distort the concept of a usability test. 

In order to prevent these I often ask users at the beginning of the test, what they had been told about what they will be doing during the session. Then I tell them my story and try to neutralize the distortions and focus the user on what really matters.      

2. Avoid the word "test".

When explaining to children what they will be doing and what is expected of them during the session you should avoid using the word "test" because it has a very specific meaning for school-aged children. They might relate this with an instance in which they are being evaluated.

To avoid this, we must communicate explicitly that the goal is to help us discover those things we can improve, that their opinion is very important to us and there is no right or wrong answer. We are testing the interface not the users.   

3. Start the routine tests with questions that help to build rapport.

While it is also a good practice when testing with adults, in the case of children, generating empathy is critical. Kids can take more time until they build trust with you, which is needed so that the technique of "thinking aloud" yields its full potential.

To accomplish this you can ask general questions like: what grade they are in, what classes they like and dislike in school, what they do in their spare time or what sports they like the most. Questions should change and should be adjusted according to the child’s age and answers. The goal is to forget for a few minutes that we're doing a usability test and just have a nice chat with them. 

4. Adapt the furniture to the physical conditions of children.

Something that seems a minor detail and is often disregarded is having chairs and tables suitable for children. This has the purpose of making them feel comfortable while using the mouse, keyboard and viewing the entire screen.

This is usually resolved with a good adjustable chairs with armrests.

5. Snacks for breaking the ice.

It is strange to imagine a group of happy children running through the halls of an office or playing at an oval table in a meeting room. Offices are clearly not meant for kids .They are very formal, monochromatic and, in some cases, cold. If tests are performed in a usability lab with mirrors and video cameras, the feeling of being watched can generate even greater self-consciousness.

     

In order to create a friendlier environment for children you can decorate the room with toys, posters and offer snacks. This last item has a special power to get a smile out of children and to break the ice.

How to overcome resistance to the implementation of User-Centered Design.

Incorporating usability techniques and processes of User-Centered Design (UCD) in companies that are not used to working with them can become a daunting task. Over and over again we hear arguments that justify the rejection and invalidate the possibility of change, even if this is minimal. This article describes the most common arguments we hear, and proposes concrete actions to refute the negatives.

Common barriers and excuses to implementing UCD

Over the past ten years, I have had the opportunity to work for companies of different markets and I find that the difficulties and barriers to implementing UCD are quite similar, regardless of the type of company or sector in which they operate.

However, the problems are different depending on the degree of maturity of each company in relation to usability and user-centered design. Taking the maturity model developed by Keikendo (link in Spanish), an IT and UX training company, it is possible to address barriers and common excuses that the design and development teams typically use, and present each one of them with arguments and concrete actions that neutralize them:

Stage of maturity	Common barriers and excuses	Arguments and courses of action
1. Unintentional User experience is not designed intentionally.	Ignorance: Usability and UX discipline is unknown.	Training.
	Rejection: Experience design is considered unnecessary.	Do nothing. They will discover the UX value on their own.
	Incompatibility: The methodology does not allow user testing.	Do usability testing with the finished product to expose the problems.
2. Self-reference Interface is designed as if users were members of the design and development team.	Cost constraints.	With 10% of the total budget of a project you can achieve an 83% improvement.
	Time constraints.	A round of user testing can be completed in one week.
	Lack of specialized resources.	Outsourcing, hire new resources or train existing ones.
3. Expert Based on the experience of one person. There is no method.	No formalized methodology.	Design and implement a feasible methodology, not an ideal one.
	Perception of uncertainty on results.	Quantitative and qualitative assessments during the test.
4. Centralized There is person in charge of experience design. There is a method.	Usability and user experience is required for certain projects, not for all of them.	Use metrics from projects based on UCD and compare them with projects that used other methodologies.
5. Distributed All teams are aware of usability and UCD. There is a method.	Resistance from senior management.	ROI is the keyword: Take metrics and show how the UCD boosts ROI.

Table: The five maturity levels, the barriers and the actions to take.

Specific arguments and courses of action to fight resistance:

Training : Some of the actions you can take when your client doesn’t know anything about usability and user-centered design are providing introductory courses, invite them to professional meetings or even explain the main concepts at informal meetings.

Choose your battles: The arguments heard rejecting UCD range from “boring” to “not necessary”. Whatever the case, it is not worth spending too much time convincing naysayers. The impact of UCD on business, the final quality achieved for a given product, and improvements in customer satisfaction are explicit benefits. Being against UCD is based mainly on dogma than reason.

User testing: In addition to being one of the main techniques of UCD, user testing is a powerful realization tool. It is important to involve design and development team members, and even invite managers and stakeholders to the usability sessions.  Watching and listening to users has a magical effect on those who continue to oppose to this methodology.

Comparing costs: In order to dissolve the excuse about costs, just demonstrate what the cost of not using a user-centered design methodology would be. The UCD is more efficient than other methods and reduces costs in development, maintenance, training, and support.

Prioritizing with time constraints: UCD allows for prioritization initiatives.  When time is short it is very important to decide which tasks should be carried out within the time available to obtain the best possible results. A round of user testing with just five users allows identifying most of the usability problems of any interface and can be done in one week. At the end of just one round, valuable information is gathered to support future design and development decisions.

Relying on experts: If the project is important for the company don’t hesitate to hire a consultant o a UX agency. In addition to solving the problem, the company can learn from them during the process.

Remove barriers related to the methodology: The process of UCD is not dogmatic.  In fact, it is considered one of the so-called agile methodologies, defined as a process rather than a structured methodology. This allows greater flexibility and adaptability to the requirements of each specific project.

Reducing uncertainty: The best way to generate certainty and reduce resistance to the adoption of user-centered design is to show quantitative and qualitative results from using this method. This involves measuring key variables of each project. The three most common variables are: effectiveness, efficiency and user satisfaction.

Break the resistance of stakeholders: From a business perspective it is more convincing to use metrics that feed into the traditional equation of a successful Web site: I = V x C x R, where:

• I: Income
  V: Number of unique visitors
  C: Conversion rate
  R: Return rate

What is contextual inquery?

In the user experience field, user research is taking more and more relevance. Contextual inquiry adds useful information about the way people interact with products. To know the real context of use allows development teams to create more friendly, adaptive and innovative interfaces.

 

Contextual inquiry is one of the techniques used in user-centered design with the purpose of knowing the context of use for a given product (software, device, Web site, app, etc.) 

What is the context of use?

The context of use is the real and specific situation in which final users (people) use a product.

Why it is important to know the context of use?

The context of use define the way in which a product or interface is used. The context of use is not the same for a mobile phone application than for desktop software. In the first case, it is possible that the user is moving and performing other tasks while using the phone, tasks that might require interaction with objects, people, and situations that exceed interactions produced within the phone interface itself. In the second case, the user might be sitting at his desk most of the time with the screen front him, a keyboard and a mouse. Clearly, one type of interaction is very different from the other.

How is contextual inquiry done?

The methodology of a contextual inquiry has a lot of anthropology. In fact, it could be considered derivative of participant observation, a methodology used in anthropology where the observer (consultant) goes into the daily practices of a given group of people (users) with the objective of getting to know their every day practices, in the context in which they are pursued, and with what purpose and motivations.  

Adapted to user-centered design methodology, the participant observation or contextual inquiry consists of observing users, one at a time, in a real and daily situation in which they use a given interface. Specific questions could then be asked in order to better understand what the user has done and why.

Participant observation sessions have three different stages:

• Introduction: the user is told what is going to be done and with what purpose. It is very important to generate empathy and create an atmosphere of confidence with the person to avoid bias during the observation process.  
• Observation: consists of taking notes of the users’ actions and the context in which they are developed. During this moment it is not convenient to interrupt the flux of actions with questions but rather to concentrate in practices that take place.
• Questions: this is the moment for asking questions about what was observed. The user should interrupt (if possible) his/her tasks to respond to any doubts that the consultants could have.    

Planning a contextual inquiry

The steps that should be followed to perform a contextual inquiry are very similar to other methodologies of user research. Nevertheless, it has its particularities. We recommend the following steps:

1. Research of user profiles.

2. Research of critical tasks for each profile.

3.Research of the product (software, application, Web site, device, etc.)

4.Definition of the script for observations.

5.Definition of the schedule (facilities, time and dates)

6.Recruitment of users.

7.Development of observations.

8.Analysis of the collected information.

9.Elaboration of reports.

10.Presentation of findings.

The challenge of contextual inquiry

The process of observing users interacting with a given interface and with their context could provide with insurmountable amounts of information that are difficult to process. The challenge is centered in indentifying the relevant information regarding the research objectives. This which could be seen as a very simple task requires of considerable experience from the consultant team in charge of the process, especially to arrive to solid-based conclusions from the observations conducted.