Abstract
The usability evaluation of educational games is an important task, especially for children. By applying Jakob Nielsen’s ten heuristics, most of the HCI designs can be evaluated, but when educational games are involved, where the user being observed is a child between the ages of six and eight, many questions arise. Is the observer trained well enough to observe the child’s reactions to the game with regard to its memorability, learnability, ease of use, and enjoyment? Will it be necessary for the observer to have a training session exploring the game before evaluating a child? Our research suggests that a training module designed to train an untrained facilitator (observer) in how to evaluate four usability dimensions (learnability, memorability, ease of use, and enjoyment) would be very useful. The usability evaluation data was collected by observing users playing generic educational games, using the Mann–Whitney U test, which was conducted by two groups of observers, one trained and one untrained. This was then reviewed, and a distinct difference was found between the results of evaluations in the two groups, thus validating the importance of training for an observer.
Highlights
Academic Editor: Christos Troussas e usability evaluation of educational games is an important task, especially for children
By applying Jakob Nielsen’s ten heuristics, most of the human-computer interaction (HCI) designs can be evaluated, but when educational games are involved, where the user being observed is a child between the ages of six and eight, many questions arise
Introduction e slogan “user friendly” appeared popular during the 1980s, but since the 1990s, the focus of usability engineering has relied heavily on the elaboration of usability evaluation methods. e usability engineering books by [1, 2] set the basis of encompassing the concept of human-computer interaction (HCI). e first decade of the twenty-first century developments regarding usability analysis had softwareflavored tactics such as user interface implementation through software tools, standards, and “look and feel” aspects. is move enhanced the awareness of the need to work on evaluating usability through the user interface as a medium
Summary
Moderated testing is done using phone, video, or interviews with the users in any HCI design. Lab and guerrilla testing methods are concerned with moderated testing. In this usability testing platform, phone, interviews, and video testing can all be conducted remotely. Lab and guerrilla testing must be carried out in person. Moderated testing conducted remotely has a high success rate in collaborative usability testing of virtual reality systems [22, 23]
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