UNIVERSITY OF OSLO Department of Informatics Evaluation Of Children’s Usability Criteria Master thesis 60 credits Elisabeth Yvette Moe 1 May 2006 Acknowledgements This master thesis is written as part of my master’s degree in the research group Information Systems at the Department of Informatics at the University of Oslo. Writing this thesis has been an interesting, educational and at times a stressful and challenging process. I especially want to thank my two advisors, Christina Mörtberg, at the Department of Informatics at the University of Oslo, and Laura A. Slaughter at the Senter For Pasientmedvirkning og Sykepleieforskning at Rikshospitalet - Radiumhospitalet HF. They have contributed with great professional advice and guidance. Time after time they guided me in the right direction and I am very grateful for all their encouraging words and all the work they have done for this thesis. This thesis could not have been done without the help from the Senter For Pasientmedvirkning og Sykepleieforskning (SPS) at Rikshospitalet - Radiumhospitalet HF. I would like to thank Cornelia Ruland for giving me the opportunity to be a part of the PedsCHOICE project. I would also like to thank Torun Marie Vatne, Mette Heiberg Endresen, Denis Pokotylyuk, Roar Andersen and Bente Schjødt – Osmo for their help, time and resources. Additionally, I want to thank the 16 participating children for their contribution to this thesis. I would like to thank all my fellow students through the years at the Department of Informatics, and especially Simon Sigurdson Hjelle for his co-operation in the PedsCHOICE project. I also like to thank my family and friends for their encouragement and support. Thank you for putting up with me in stressful times. Lastly, I would like to thank Kelly Rowland, Beyoncé Knowles and Michelle Williams for being an inspiration to me. Elisabeth Yvette Moe Oslo, May 1st, 2006 ii Abstract This master thesis explores usability in a system for children and the evaluation of their usability criteria. Many children experience that they cannot find the desired content or are not able to navigate from one section to another in software meant for children. One of the reasons for this could be that the software makes use of functionality that the children do not understand. To be able to design a system with good usability meant for children, they can be included into the design process. The research done for this thesis have taken place at Senter For Pasientmedvirkning og Sykepleieforskning (SPS) at Rikshospitalet - Radiumhospitalet HF. SPS are in the process of making a symptom assessment tool for pediatric cancer patients, the PedsCHOICE project. Since the system is to obtain valid information from the children in the age of 7 to 12, it is important that this process goes as smoothly and intuitive as possible. To increase the possibility that the system will reflect the users understanding and needs, children were asked to participate in the project. Children were included into the design process by conducting sessions. In these sessions, various participatory design tasks were given to the children for them to complete. The tasks included creation of paper prototypes, card sort and testing of various software. In the sessions the children were involved in various degrees. The participating children were never equal design partners to the adults in the PedsCHOICE project. The research methods used for this thesis were a triangulation of qualitative and quantitative methods. To collect the data during the sessions observations and video recordings were used. Video analysis and categorization were used to analyses the data. Many ideas were generated in the sessions that were conducted. The ideas from the videos were compared to usability criteria proposed by The Nielsen Norman Group and Hanna, classified into categorized and given a grade. This helped to evaluate whether an idea was usable or not. Depending on the grade, an idea was classified as consistent or inconsistent. iv This thesis shows that half of the ideas that the children generated were consistent and usable. This study shows that there is a relationship between tasks given and the amount of ideas generated, some tasks created more ideas than others. Throughout most of the sessions, the children had to some degree difficulty to understand the purpose of the system. This could have been different if the children and the adults were equal design partners in this project. v Contents Acknowledgements...................................................................................................................ii Introduction .............................................................................................................................. 1 Aim And Research Questions ................................................................................................ 3 Delimitation And Structure .................................................................................................... 4 PedsCHOICE – Case Description and Procedures............................................................... 5 Participants............................................................................................................................. 7 Procedures .............................................................................................................................. 8 Pilot session........................................................................................................................ 8 Session 1............................................................................................................................. 9 Session 2........................................................................................................................... 10 Session 3........................................................................................................................... 10 Session 4........................................................................................................................... 11 Project Specification ............................................................................................................ 11 Theoretical Framework ......................................................................................................... 13 Participatory Design............................................................................................................. 13 Children As Designers?........................................................................................................ 14 Roles Of Children............................................................................................................. 15 Usability - Research Techniques...................................................................................... 17 Design With And For Children Methodologies ............................................................... 19 Usability Criteria For Children ............................................................................................ 20 Guidelines For Designing For Children........................................................................... 21 Methods................................................................................................................................... 25 Qualitative And Quantitative Research................................................................................ 25 Observations And Video Recordings................................................................................... 26 Data Analysis ....................................................................................................................... 27 Classification And Coding ............................................................................................... 27 The Categorization ........................................................................................................... 28 Reflections on Method ......................................................................................................... 31 Ethical Aspects................................................................................................................. 33 Results ..................................................................................................................................... 35 Ideas Suggested By The Children ........................................................................................ 35 Generation Of Ideas And Tasks ....................................................................................... 36 Ideas Classified .................................................................................................................... 41 User Variation .................................................................................................................. 41 Media................................................................................................................................ 43 Content ............................................................................................................................. 45 Help Features.................................................................................................................... 51 Interaction......................................................................................................................... 54 Input ................................................................................................................................