User Testing Kiosk Experience

Hello Medium! I’m back with an update on my kiosk design.The last time you heard from me, I was developing researching over the exhibits in the Science Center. I decided to create a kiosk experience about different forms of energy. I then coded a prototype and had students on Maryville’s campus come up and user test the design on a kiosk.

User 1

Name: Nick

Gender: Male

Occupation: Maryville Student

User’s Insight:

1. He believed the instructions were easy to follow and had no trouble accomplishing each game.
2. Claimed he wouldn’t read the information within the pop up if it wasn’t in your face. However, he also suggested making a button to tap on so that it becomes the user’s choice to tap and read more information.
3. Nick wanted to understand why the red windmill creates the most energy. The information that appears only explains how windmills create energy; however, the game is about different design of windmills.
4. He felt there was something missing in the solar panel game. Nick wanted to be able to position the solar panel along with the sun.
5. Nick believed he would walk up to the kiosk if he saw it but felt the games were a little childish.

User 2

Name: Alex

Gender: Male

Occupation: Maryville Student

User’s Insight:

1. Alex claimed that he would not play on this game if he saw it in the Science Center. He felt that the games were not at his level of what he found to be exciting and fun. The games were not intuitive to him. He did feel like kids would enjoy playing the games.
2. He enjoyed the coal game and liked seeing how the fire gets bigger and bigger as you add the coal.
3. Alex was not a fan of the pop up being front and center. he thought it would fit better in the corner of the screen.
4. Alex also felt like the solar panel game was missing something. He wanted to be able to angle the panel toward the sun.
5. He wanted the game windmill game to explain the different blades.

User 3

Name: Emma

Gender: Female

Occupation: Maryville Student

User’s Insight:

1. Loved the fun colors of the game. Emma claimed that the colors make her want to play it.
2. The instructions were easy to understand and follow through on.
3. She didn’t understand what was the highest point on the scale in the corner of the screen. She wanted there to be more details in the scale.
4. She wanted the windmill to lock on to the pole. It bothered her that the windmill would start spinning even if it was not completely on the pole.
5. Emma claimed that the game was meant for children but she still found the games entertaining.

User 4

Name: Kelly

Gender: Female

Occupation: Maryville Faculty

User’s Insight:

1. Wanted visual feedback on the games. Kelly wanted something else to react with the user then just the pop up.
2. Kelly claimed that the windmill game was her favorite because it provided more of a challange. She stated it was like a puzzle.
3. She suggested that I do the same thing with the other games and turn them more into puzzles.
4. Kelly claimed that the pop ups feel wordy. She would read it if it was divided up.
5. Didn’t feel like the coal looked like coal. She wanted the coal to look black instead of blue.

User 5

Name: Julia

Gender: Female

Occupation: Maryville Student

User’s Insight:

1. Julia loved the idea behind this game. She works with kids a lot and feels like this game would get their attention.
2. Loved that the fire reacts and gets bigger when you drag the coal into it. It made her excited.
3. Loves the bright colors. It looks fun and playful.
4. Julia claimed that everything was easy to accomplish and felt like a younger generation would be able to figure it out as well.
5. She wanted the solar panel to react to the sun light. Julia suggested a little shine of the sun reflecting off the panel.

Re-Design

1. I realized from the user testing that the pop up was not the most effective choice to present the information. I will redesign the way the information shows up on the page. I will make the information appear in the blue bar at the bottom of the screen. This will still provide feedback for the user as they play each game but it won’t disrupt the game.
2. I need to give the user more visual feedback. I believe I can accomplish this by changing the fill color of the scale as the user builds more energy in each game. This will solve the problem of understanding what is the highest point on the scale.
3. In the windmill game, I need to explain the design of each of the windmill’s blades. This will make the information more correlated with the game.
4. I want to rethink the way the coal game is set up. Kelly’s comment about how the windmill game is more fun because it was set up to be a puzzle for the user. I want to apply that idea to my coal game.
5. The feedback I recieved about the solar panel game tells me that the game is missing something. It needs more visual feedback as the user is draging the sun across the sky. I plan to add something to the panel itself that shows that the sun is affecting it.