The following three documents are samples of my experience planning, designing, and executing research that seeks to understand user needs and then turning key findings into award-winning designs.
- A usability evaluation plan for the LeapPad – a “learning tablet” that sounded out words when children dragged a stylus across a word in LeapPad books
- The results from a usability evaluation of a productivity/creative writing tool, The Ultimate Writing and Creativity Center
- Specifications and a flowchart for a tablet-based game for use by families in museums
USABILITY EVALUATION PLAN
Leap Frog Toys
Usability Evaluations Disclaimer
A common misunderstanding about what can be obtained from a usability evaluation is that it will validate specific features or provide some insight into the future success of the product. Unfortunately, a usability evaluation is not the type of activity which can be used to confirm that any particular feature or function is working adequately. Rather, this process of bringing in representative users to perform representative tasks can only be used to identify major problems in the product’s user interface.
Commentary
It was a lot of fun working on the initial release of Leap Frog’s award-winning product: the LeapPad (It won both the People’s Choice Toy of the Year and Educational Toy of the Year awards.)
This is a sample of a usability evaluation plan I created for a usability evaluation of a LeapPad prototype. As the only UX specialist on the initial product team, I directed the user experience of the product’s hardware, firmware, software, and related educational components (4 books).
USABILITY EVALUATION RESULTS
Ultimate Writing and Creativity Center
The following quick findings are the result of a child test of PenPal, Alpha version A4.
Major Finding. There were only two major problems uncovered with this usability evaluation and they are linked. The children were unable to develop and work with the actual user interface model that everything they create are handled as documents. Specifically, the children’s mental distinction that their words and pictures were different made it difficult for them to adopt the behavior of going to the Word Processor to save their pictures. After being shown how to save a picture, even the most experience computer and word processor users continued to have trouble with this treatment. This is a serious finding and it needs to be given serious attention if the basic usability of this product is to be improved.
Co-producing and being responsible for the educational components of this award-winning productivity/creativity writing tool was a dream come true.
This document is a write-up of the results from a usability evaluation I conducted on this award-winning product .
It taught children how to write, included a full-featured word processor; an animated, talking writing coach; and 3 creativity “spaces” to explore for writing inspiration
PROJECT SPECIFICATIONS AND FLOW CHART
iQuest
This spec describes the back-end administration that will be required to manage both a full-scale usability test and a long-term evaluation at a partner location. It assumes the following:
- During the evaluation, users will not be charged for any part of the game participation. The only reason a credit card number will be collected is in the event that a device is broken or not returned by the user. Therefore, there is no need for a shopping cart or checkout process. We DO, however, need to consider how to temporarily store the credit card information securely.
This spec corresponds to the flowchart: Backend Flowchart
This document contains the specifications for iQuest, a tablet-based, 21st century scavenger hunt game. (An associated flowchart is also available via link.)
Designed for multi-generational families to play at museums, resorts, and on cruise ships, iQuest also included content management and usage analytics modules.
It was developed collaboratively with 2 other co-founders.