Webs for children. Part III: Usability test with children

And finally, the third part of the posts about Webs and Children. I wrote about what I learned reading a few articles, refered at the bottom of the post.

Testing with children

Children have a few general aspects that we have to take into account when we are working with children as users tests.

As I said in the first post about Webs for children, the age is one of the most important aspects. In this case, the first group (from 3 year-old to 5 year-old) is the most difficult to work with. They will prefer show you what they can do instead of follow a list of tasks, and you will need to pay attention in their faces, looking for smiles, frowns, sighs... The next group (from 6-year-old to 8-year-old) already have experience following directions, they do it at school. Usually, they don't like to be observed while they play and they will be less shy as they grow up. Finally, the last group (from 9-year-old to 12-year-old) can be asked more easily and as older the children are, as more talkative they will be.

Their capacity of concentration is low, so the session can't be more than an hour, 30 minutes for the youngest. If we realise that the children are gettin bored, we can take a short break We'll also sort the tasks or questions in a different way for each child, in order to don't have the same questions at the end of the test, when they are tired.

The room where you are going to do the session must be child-friendly, but keeping a balance between and adult enviroment and a place or stuff which invite to play, losing concentration. When we are working with the preschool group, it would be useful be sure about what periphals they use at home, such as the keyboards or mice.

Before getting started, meet the children and speak softly, they can be stressed-out because of the new people and surroundings, so they will need to relax. Parents must know they must be careful, they can't make any interference during the tests, because children are quite easily influenced.

During the test, the children are used to ask for help, so we have to redirect their questions and try to help them without meddle.They can also get bored easily, therefore, they need motivation, it's necessary to encourage them to keep "working".

And finally, after testing, remember that their work must be rewarded.

References

• Usability testing with children: a lesson from Piaget, Sabina Idler
• Tips for usability testing with children, Tom Stewart
• Usability testing with children, Webcredible
• Diseño Web orientado a niños, Yusef Hassan Montero