Testing DigiCab on Personas

After designing our first prototype, we decided to test it on the personas we originally created to see what (if any) modifications were needed. The results are displayed below:

Simon Sims - Spoilt 1 year old boy

When initially presenting the prototype to Simon’s parents, they pointed out that they were not happy with the DigiCab’s sharp edges. They suggested smoothing these for safety reasons. They mentioned that Simon could be a little clumsy sometimes.

When Simon was first presented with the DigiCab prototype, we noticed that he was not entirely sure what he was meant to be doing. The touch screen was not something he was used to. He would hit the screen to make sounds but did not appear to consciously choose which picture he selected. We asked his parents whether they thought that he may react better to buttons instead of a touch screen and they agreed that it would probably be better.

Suggested Modifications

• Smooth edges for safety reasons
• Have buttons instead of touch screen

Michelle Fox - Quiet girl

Michelle when presented with the prototype instantaneously recognised the picture of the cat displayed on the touch screen, pointed her finger and touched it. The sound “This is a cat” was played. This made her smile and she pressed it again, and again. She then started to press some of the other pictures on the touch screen, but her favourites appeared to be the Cat and the Rabbit pictures.

It was difficult to see whether she actually knew that the prototype was teaching her the words of the objects but her reaction to the prototype was promising as she showed an understand that if she pressed the pictures it made different sounds.

Her parents mentioned that they believed that generally parents would be willing to help their children to understand the devices purpose and that it would help them as well as the child as teaching the child how to speak is not a quick and easy task. They liked the idea of being able to customise the pictures and sounds with their own but were concerned about how easy it would be to do.

Suggested modifications:

• Make sure that the software for parents to upload pictures and sounds is easy to use and understand.

Judy Geller - Hyperactive, 2 years old girl

Judy appeared to be attracted towards similar things as Michelle – but was able to successfully pronounce a few of the words. On the other hand, compared with Judy she quickly lost interest and wanted to go play with her dolls house instead. One of her parents mentioned that Judy seems to like role playing with her dolls and make up a stories for each doll character. Even though her parents can’t understand a some things Judy says for her stories they know she has a great imagination. We mentioned to her parents about our story mode idea, which they thought was brilliant and would help keep children interested.

Suggested modifications:

• Incorporate a story mode into the DigiCab to keep children interested

Phil Mitchell - Technology Loving 3 years old boy

Phil took to the DigiCab straight away and seemed to know exactly what he was doing. He was more drawn towards pressing the pictures of the car, bus and computer and repeated quite a few words when asked to. He already knew how to form short and simple sentences but appeared to struggle with his pronunciation. It seemed that he had somewhat already outgrown the basic idea of being told, “this is a car” as he appeared to have already learnt these words. On the other hand he would probably benefit more from being taught how to use the words in context. In this case the story mode idea would have been ideal. Phil’s father being a technology lover loved the idea of being able to customize the DigiCab with their own photos and sound as long as it was easy and not too time consuming to do so. Phil's father did not like the colour scheme, mentioning that it was too babyish. Phil himself should his head when he was asked if he liked the prototypes colours.

Suggested modifications:

• Incorporate story mode to teach more mature children how use words in the right context.
• Make sure that the software for parents to upload pictures and sounds is easy to use and not time consuming.
• Change colour scheme to something less babyish.

Ricardo Winner - Active 3 years old boy

Ricardo had no trouble in understanding how to use the DigiCab. He hit the touch screen quite hard when making his selections. Once again we noticed that he knew quite a few words but sometimes struggled to form sentences and pronounce words correctly. When asked about whether he liked the colours he replied "no". When we asked him what was wrong with the colours he said: "They are girly".

Suggested modifications:

• Make sure that Digicab is durable and able to withstand hard blows without breaking.
• Design different coloured Digicab devices for both boys and girls.