Week 5: Oct 10th, 2011

Caribbean Quest (Cog2)

The next step in my research is to put the knowledge base of HCI, UEMs and Education Application Design that I have accumulated to the test!
I will be working with the Cog2 group in conducting usability evaluations, in order to produce a polished copy to the Psychology group.

Because of the development stage the project is currently in, we will be taking an iterative approach to the evaluation process (integrate the process of finding the problems and developing the solution!).

Meeting with Cog2 group
The project is currently in the development stages of it's last 2 games. The developers are simultaneously conducting a code review, and updating it to reflect their established code standards. There are 3/4 games that are currently ready to be evaluated, following thorough bug-testing.
After reviewing the benefits/pitfalls of different evaluation methods, I have decided to use a 'hybrid' approach, combining inspection and user testing methods to evaluate the system. As a group, we identified the different evaluation stages necessary to accomplish this task:

Round 1: Debugging. Dave requires a small group of experts to execute several use cases to reduce the chance of a UI expert or an end user discovering a bug in upcoming evaluations. The system will be given to specified group of people in the lab and/or on the 3rd floor of the ECS building.

Round 2: Heuristic evaluation with experts. This evaluation phase will be executed with a group of 3-5 users with a technical background and knowledge in UI and/or game design. The evaluators will be asked to take 2 passes at the system:
Pass 1: The evaluators should get a feel of the flow and general scope of the system.
Pass 2: The evaluators will examine the system and focus on these individual elements outlined in a predefined checklist of usability/educational game heuristics.

Round 3: User Testing. Using an appropriate mix of 'learners', end user testing will help uncover issues in the system overlooked during the inspection method. The size of our user group will depend on the resources available.

I will be spending the next week reviewing the background information on the project and some of the requirements/design documents shared between group members.

I have posted a tentative evaluation schedule, and it is to be presented to the Cog2 group in upcoming weeks.