User Testing
Testers from Nueva School
Testing Overview
We conducted most of our testing at The Nueva School located in Hillsborough, CA. We tested our prototypes on a variety of students from 1st graders to 3rd graders. We observed them playing our game and noted particular things they found difficult. We also conducted informal interviews to find out their preferences and opinions about current design aspects and also possible future design aspects.
User Test Feedback: Software
We tested our feedback algorithm (detecting claps when a value is read by the sensors and assigning it to a specific hand gesture) on the children. This helped us to develop better clap detection techniques by examining how hard high the sensor read certain clap gestures. We also tested the pace and complexity of the game play with the children. This helped us from developing sequences that were too fast and too complex or too slow and too easy. We first developed a sequence that was too slow and too simplistic for the children. We then developed a sequence that was too fast and too complex. Eventually, we found a good pace and developed a variety of songs to play with ranging complexity. Lastly, we tested different methods of selecting and navigating through the menus. We tried just using they keyboard or a controller and we also tried to develop a way to navigate using hand gestures. We found that it is easiest to navigate using hand gestures because it reduces the number of inputs a player has to work with and also lets the players get used to executing hand gestures.
User Test Feedback: Hardware
We tested a variety of gloves with the kids to find out what would be most comfortable and produce the least amount of sweat during longer game play. We tried a range of gloves, from cotton gloves, to cleaning gloves, and finally costume gloves. We stuck with the costume gloves because they did not leave a smell on your hands like the latex cleaning gloves and did not insulate as much heat within the gloves like the cotton gloves. Furthermore, the cleaning gloves were referred to as "garbage man gloves." For these reason, we chose the costume gloves. We also tested the sensor's ability to detect hand gestures. We tried three different options, small FSRs sensors (force resistive sensors), large FSRs sensors, and a copper wire circuit sensor. We found that the small FSRs detected a range of pressure; however, the surface area of the detection was small. The copper wire was difficult to implement and the children found that the copper wire was not comfortable on the glove even during minimal game play. We found that the large FSRs detected motion relatively well and had a large enough area to fit the palm of the hands of the children.