A studio designing an educational maths tool to support children age 8-12 require a UX/ID consultant to advise them at various stages of the UCD Lifecycle. Recommendations based on UCD that could be adopted and applied were offered in this report. 

Project Brief

Content 

Introduction

Requirements and Task Analysis

Design

Human Factors

Usability

Accessibility

Conclusion

References 

Introduction

Educators and learners are increasingly reliant on digital tools to facilitate learning. “However, educators and learners often use technology in ways that are different than developers originally intended (Straub, 2017), (Schmidt et al., 2020).”  “For instance, educators may be faced with challenges trying to determine how to assess student learning in their learning management system or they might spend time determining workarounds to administer lesson plans (Earnshaw, Tawfik and Schmidt, 2018).” Learners might experience challenges navigating an interface or finding homework details (Earnshaw, Tawfik and Schmidt, 2018). When an interface is not easy to use, a user must develop alternative paths to complete a task and thereby accomplish a learning goal. Such challenges are the result of design flaws, which create barriers for effective instruction (Schmidt et al., 2020).

Understanding how educators and learners interact with learning technologies is key to avoiding and remediating design flaws. An area of research that seeks to understand the interaction between technology and the people who use it is known as human-computer interaction (Rogers, 2012). HCI considers interaction from many perspectives, two of which are usability and user experience (UX) (Earnshaw, Tawfik and Schmidt, 2018). Usability describes how easily the interfaces can be used as intended by the user (Nielsen, 2012). Examples include when an interface is designed in such a way that the user can anticipate errors, support efficiency, and strategically use design cues so that cognitive resources remain focused on learning. UX describes the broader context of usage in terms of “a person’s perceptions and responses that result from the use or anticipated use of a product, system, or service” (ISO - International Organization for Standardization, 2019). Emphasizing HCI corresponds with a more user-centered approach to design. Such user-centred design (UCD) emphasizes understanding users’ needs and expectations throughout all phases of design (Norman and Draper, 2017).

Requirements and Task Analysis

One potential pitfall of any design process occurs when designers create systems based on assumptions of what users want. Only after designers have begun to understand the user, they should begin to identify what capabilities or conditions a system must be able to support to meet the identified needs (Schmidt et al., 2020). The process a designer undertakes to identify these requirements is known as requirements gathering. Requirements gathering involves gathering and analysing user data (e.g., surveys, focus groups, interviews, observations) and assessing user needs (Sleezer, Russ-Eft, and Gupta, 2014). This data-driven approach helps designers avoid applying ready-made solutions to assumed needs and ensures the design process is user-centered.

Stakeholders Analysis

The ones who will use the system are Kids (8 -12 years old), teachers (Mathematician) and the Parents. Assessing users' needs (kids, 8-12 years old) can yield valuable information about performance gaps and other problems. However, knowledge of needs alone is insufficient to design highly usable and pleasing learning environments (Schmidt et al., 2020). A child (8-12 years old) can think logically about concrete objects thus can add and subtract also understand conversations as shown in Figure 1.

Figure 1: Child Cognitive development stages (https://www.eleken.co/blog-posts/ux-design-for-children-how-to-create-a-product-children-will-love).

Based on identified user needs, a set of requirements is generated to define what system capabilities must be developed to meet those needs. Requirements are not just obtained for one set of users but for all user types and personas (including kids and teachers) that might utilize the system. Data-based requirements (a) help designers avoid the pitfall of applying ready-made solutions to assumed user needs, (b) position the user and their needs centrally in the design process, and (c) allow for creation of design guidelines targeting an array of various user needs. Requirements based on user data are therefore more promising in supporting a positive learner experience. However, given the iterative nature of User Centred Design (UCD), requirements might change as a design evolves. Shifts in requirements vary depending on design and associated evaluation outcomes. Two methods commonly used in UCD for establishing requirements are persona and scenario development (Schmidt et al., 2020).

Personas

“In UCD, a popular approach to understanding users is to create what is known as personas (Cooper, 1999), (Schmidt et al., 2020).”. Personas provide a detailed description of a fictional user whose characteristics represent a specific user group. “They serve as a methodological tool that helps designers approach design based on the perspective of the user rather than (often biased) assumptions (Earnshaw, Tawfik, and Schmidt, 2018).” A persona typically includes information about a user's demographics, goals, needs, typical day, and experiences (Earnshaw, Tawfik and Schmidt, 2018). To create a persona, interviews or observations should gather information from individual users and then place them into specific user categories. Personas should be updated if there are changes to technology, business needs, or other factors (Earnshaw, Tawfik and Schmidt, 2018). These archetypes help designers obtain a deep understanding of the types of users for the system (Schmidt et al., 2020). Personas are especially helpful for designers in considering cultural diversity. (Schmidt et al., 2020) However, developing personas of, for example, a 9-year-old girl who is a kinesthetics learner, creative and has colour blindness, not confident with technology. She has a 11years old brother who is confident with technology, he is a visual learner with dyslexia as a disability can provide context for designers to consider these sociocultural perspectives more intentionally in their learning designs. Because user personas should be developed based on data that have been gathered about those learners, implicit bias can be reduced.

Figure 2: Example of a User Persona for the target audience

Scenarios

A complimentary method to personas is scenarios. “Scenarios provide a means to situate the user/learner persona and technology within a realistic context of usage while the learner attempts to achieve his or her goal.” (Schmidt et al., 2020). Scenarios are presented as narratives that describe user activity in an informal story format (Carroll, 2000), (Schmidt et al., 2020). While scenarios are widely used in software development, there is little specific guidance on how they should be developed. Scenarios should be developed in such a way that they are able to provide the designer useful detail about contexts, needs, and goals, which can be used to highlight necessary requirements.

To be continued...