Diversity App Step 13: User Testing
Hello again! Last time we spoke, I was explaining my design choices in my app design Able.
Since then, I have had to put my design to the test! I interviewed three people: one who was in the field of designing apps and the other two who represented my target audience. It is important to test people who have no clue what your design is about already. This way, the opinion is coming from a person who is seeing and navigating through it for the first time. New pairs of eyes often lead to new ideas of things you didn’t think about.
My first interview was with an employee in the research department of World Wide Tech. She had experience in working with projects where you develop apps for target users. This interview did not go according to plan which left me with little useful feedback toward my app. However, the employee did advise me that I needed some sort of “About Page” to help give users a little more information before they start playing with it. Other than that, she stated that everything felt clearly labeled and understood.
My target audience is elementary students from ages 6 to 8. I definitely do not know a lot of kids in Saint Louis so I worked with my cousins who live here. My first cousin that I interviewed was Noah Fales. Noah just turned 12 this year. Noah stated he doesn’t know anyone in his life with a disability but he does know what the word means.
Noah seemed to have a positive response to my app. He seemed to navigate fairly well through it without my help. Noah enjoyed playing the basketball game but felt it was difficult to understand. This was because of XD’s limitations. When I asked him to explain how he thought the game would work, we were on the same page. He communicated that he thought you would use your finger to swipe the ball toward the hope which was exactly what I envisioned for the game.
The interview with Noah pointed out to me that the Nav button I placed on the screen does not look like you are supposed to tap on it. Noah thought it was just a profile of the user. I was going to take this information and try to make it so that the user understands that the button does more than show the User’s character. Other than that, Noah told me he really liked playing the game and wished the other characters worked so he could play theirs’.
My third interview was with my little cousin David who is 7 years old. He is considered to be my ideal user according to my target audience. David stated that he doesn’t know anyone with a disability either but he understood what the word meant.
His interview was interesting because he understood things that Noah didn’t and vice versa. David knew that if you tap on the profile image, a navigation bar would pop up. He did, however, get confused with navigating through the homepage to get to the character “Alex”. It was tricky for him to drag across the screen. It makes me wonder if I need to make the instructional text at the top of the homepage more noticeable. I also realized in this section that kids do not know what the word “navigate” means so I decided to use a simplier word to describe what the user should do.
David was able to keep up with the reading portions of the app which I found to be assuring. He also understood the difference between the practice mode and real mode in the game section. These were aspects of the game that I wanted to make sure was clear and user-friendly for kids around his age.
I believe my last two interviews gave me good feedback and made me feel more confident about my design. There may be a couple of things I need to tweak to give more emphasis on or make more clear. I feel like kids would have an overall positive and beneficial experience with my app.
