Tips and Takeaways for Remote Usability Testing with Younger Children
One of the e-learning applications for early childhood education approached Somia CX to conduct Usability Testing (UT) on the content learning and navigation journey. Since we have never experienced conducting remote sessions with younger children (age 4 to 6), we did some preliminary testing and would like to share our experience.
We have many assumptions about how children behave, especially when communicating with a stranger inside the screen. Thus, we finally had two different approaches for the UT settings.
The Ghost Whisperer Approach
The first approach was ‘The Ghost Whisperer’, we were invisible to the child and only communicated through the parent as the moderator. Children nowadays are more digitally native and when we were invisible toward the child, they still realized that there was a camera. Younger children are very conscious of the environment surrounding them. They become aware and cautious of any unfamiliar object observing them. Moreover, the session becomes dependent on the relationship between the parents and the child as the parents have their way of asking questions or, in other cases, might force the child to do what the parents want.
The Playdate Buddy Approach
The second approach was ‘The Playdate Buddy’, in which we introduced ourselves to the child, the parent stayed beside them. Then, we played a little game together and slowly implied the UT materials in the session to maintain their attention. Introducing ourselves to the child could help them have more context and understanding of what will happen next.
Younger children are very conscious of the environment surrounding them. They become aware and cautious of any unfamiliar objects observing them.
We run into unexpected moments trying out both of the approaches. Once we started the first session in the afternoon, we interrupted the child’s playing time unintentionally. Without prior knowledge and expectation from the child, they performed with a very low mood from the beginning. Another time when we conducted a morning session and the child had just woken up. We ended up waiting for one and a half hours to let the child get ready first. In the case of our younger children respondents, the parents naturally helped and led the child directly when they were likely to be underperformed, which we wanted to avoid. Both of the approaches had taught us different experiences on how to strategize better our UT sessions to fit the younger children’s behavior.
After testing both of our approaches, we concluded that “The Playdate Buddy” approach was way more effective. However, finding the right approach alone was not enough to conduct remote UT with younger children, so here are some tips we have gathered from our takeaways.
Consider the parent-child profiles that are comfortable with new settings
Recruitment became one of the biggest challenges to get the right profile of the children and parents. Especially in the early childhood stage, verbal communication is perhaps less articulative and timid when meeting new people, not to mention the remote session in less physical contact. One of the possible approaches is to exert the recruitment process as part of an introduction session. While assessing the child’s characters whether they fit into your criteria, you can also show your face and play a simple game together to let the child be familiar with you before the UT session.
Parent cooperativeness is crucial to help condition the child
Based on the interview with the mother about children’s daily online class in primary education, the teacher usually briefs all the parents weekly on what the topic is for the next class. Surprisingly, it has influenced the child’s behavior in the classroom. Whenever she has told the child beforehand what they will learn today, the child shows more confidence in participating during the lesson. Hence, briefing the parents separately earlier will help you align the parent’s role during the UT session. Let the parents condition the child attentively, explaining there will be someone who wants to play a fun lesson on the app with them.
The children’s attention span is extremely short, strategize your session carefully
When you have had your recruitment session with the child, you might already know what types of game or cartoon series they like. One of the best takeaways from our experience was to choose more than one ice breaker game. Having a warm-up fun session with simple games will help you get the child’s attention. However, make sure that the game you choose is not way too much fun than your testing app. The child will only remember more of that fun session and have an unintended bias from their answer during your UT.
Think out of the box in using stimuli for questions
Younger children show more expressions and body language than verbal. They are more unpredictable when making their decision, thus having guidelines during note-taking will make it harder to keep track of their behavior. Aside from that, using common qualitative formulated questions is not working well for younger children. They frequently express themselves in the basic form of sentences and words. Asking why they like this app will never get what you want from them. Some of the ideas we thought of are reasoning the questions in the set of quizzes, image card stimuli, or correlating some with simpler objects.
Setting up the apps, sound, and video camera before the session
Some challenges appeared not only from the child’s expectations but also in terms of technicality. Their home conditions need to be well prepared. In the context of testing children’s applications, the sound of its app is essential to be taken into account when setting the remote session. The sound needs proper adjustment without clashing the voice of the children and the parent during the UT session.
Prioritize observation more than verbal note-taking
Naturalistic observation in free writing format will give more space for their natural flow of choosing and navigating the app during UT. One common mistake to avoid is writing our assumptions in the observation notes. Since the child’s expression can be apparent, we sometimes note it simply with subjective words instead of factual or objective terms. “There was a big smile on his face, then, he wanted to do it one more time” is the example of a fact or objective note, rather than writing our assumption like “The child was having fun”. Writing natural observation can be challenging since it is very descriptive and involves specific micro-interactions.
Be very flexible at the time and expect the unexpected situation
One of the crucial considerations is to choose the right time to conduct the session. Younger children will likely be tired after school ends late noon, too sleepy in the morning, and more sensitive or grumpy before lunchtime. Thus, you cannot force-fit too many participants in a day when scheduling. Before the session, we recommend ensuring the settings are in a controlled environment, meaning keep away from any distractions that may attract the child. Lastly, there will be unexpected situations you might face due to their mood swings in the session. Be aware and notice their frustrations, then patiently give them more space to have a little break time to refresh their attention span.
We hope these tips will help researchers and designers who intend to engage younger children as participants in the project. These findings are based on our preliminary testing and have not been iterating more afterward. We are very curious too about what you think and please do share if you have more tips and insightful experiences about interacting with younger children in your project.
Co-written with Andranisa Diastari and Anindya Fitriyanti
