Designing an interactive educational software involving children as design partners

Abstract

This paper describes a requirement study to design an interactive educational software for children. The study demonstrates the importance of involvement of children as design partners. Eleven (11) students aged 8 to 12 years from a local government school participated in the study. Educational softwares used in the study were three applications to help children learn mathematics. Observations and survey methods were used to evaluate fun, learning, and ease of use. We used Smileyometer and Fun Sorter as tools for the children to evaluate the applications. We found that the Fun Sorter was a better evaluation tool for children. Results of the study show that children were aware of their needs for learning. They were able to produce creative ideas in designing an educational software for learning mathematics. The children believe that educational software should mainly focus on learning, but at the same time it should be fun and exciting.