When I proposed the idea of getting in touch with children (and I didn't even think about the MIT Museum - Mel decided to give it a try), I didn't mean the implementation to be really formal; moreover, when I learned about the proposed Museum's event, I specifically insisted it to be non-formal; I suggested it to be observational at most.
Joe ---------- At 05:16 PM 10/13/2008, Seth Woodworth wrote: >On Mon, Oct 13, 2008 at 10:29 AM, Mel Chua ><<mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]>[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: >Thanks for the writeup, Frances! Ccing the testing list in case >anyone's curious about how things went. (Also, the kid-testing was >Joe's idea; I just got it to happen at the Museum this Saturday.) > > >There were a number of volunteers at the scene > >Note - the Boston-area OLPC group (MassXO) runs this station at the >Museum every Saturday from 1-4, so we were really piggybacking off >their event. ;) > > >As a volunteer with MassXO (and not as an OLPC'er) I've also been >attending the Museum for the past few months. > > > >The questionnaire was much too long and detailed. We never even got >anyone using it as we decided early on that this particular day >should be our observation day where we see what the foot traffic is >like, get a sense of what the students like and see how the testing >may work in this given environment...our "baseline" in a sense. > >That's good to know too - I really didn't expect the questionnaire >to work as planned; it was to give us a strawman to try out things >against, and something to do/observe by default if nothing else was >going on (clearly something else did happen). Hopefully now we have >a better sense of what kind of questions we can ask experts who do >this kind of testing for a living; they can help us design and tune >these tests (and others) to get us the kind of data that we want. >Speaking of which... > >Frances - since we now know what kind of information we couldn't >capture (with the procedures as they stand), what kinds of >information do you think we could (or did) capture at this kind of >location? Once we know this, we can decide whether it's worth trying >this again (if it's info that we want and warrants the effort we're expending). > > >I'm pretty convinced that this particular setup with museum is not >going to give us an useful feedback or testing data. See below: > > > >Its a great environment for introducing our program to folks who may >or may not have heard of us, but may not be the testing ground we >were hoping for. > > >My hope is that whatever we work out for this kind of setting won't >be reliant on one person or another being there, but that we'll have >instructions that a group of people (perhaps with a particular >background) can set up and run themselves - that way other groups in >other places can eventually do this too. > > >This is a good idea, providing more strawman structures for testing >groups to follow, tear-down, or rebuild is a an excellent >one. Especially helping testing groups to try things in new >locations and in new ways. > > >One arrangement that might work better (thinking off the top of my >head here) is to keep the XO demo table as a free and open space >with intro volunteers helping people play with the laptops, as they >are now - and then have a separate table in the corner set off as a >"testing lab," with 1-2 XOs and a volunteer that's been trained >beforehand on some basic UI test cases (and ask researchers from a >UI test lab to help us figure out some simple cases they can run). > > >This might work a bit better, anything we do at the museum is going >to have to be very off-to-the-side. > > >Have a sign-up sheet on the "XO fun" table where people can sign up >for, say, 15min test slots in "the lab," where they'll be guided >through the process; they'll be dedicated to being in "test mode" >since that's what they signed up for, and a single researcher that's >trained on how to carry out this experiment beforehand can get a lot >more focused data that we want in a planned, timed session than >people passing by the table will be inclined to write down. > >Thoughts? > >-Mel > > > >This is the layout/arrangement at the MIT Museum. In the main lobby >of the museum, there are a number of interactive exhibits, including >underwater submarines, live fish, and a city-car simulation. This >is a fairly small space that people wonder through and then make >their way to the longer-term exhibits upstairs. > >Parents, grandparents and children wonder through this space, and >see that there is an active table and chairs with people behind it, >and cute little laptops. People are moderately interested in the >program, grab a tri-fold brochure, look at the laptop a minute, and >then move to other exhibits. Some fraction of those people stick >around for longer and really want to hear about OLPC and about the >XO. They want to know how it's different from a 'real laptop' they >want to know how the collaboration works, and they want to know what >software it comes with. They stick around to ask a few more >questions and then they leave. If their kids are interested in the >laptops while their parents talk to the nice volunteers then the >kids stick around. > >You're able to engage the children for at-most 10 minutes, while >answering questions to their parents. It's just not the right >environment to ask people to do anything formal or to restrict what >they're doing. > >Also, for the most part fairly-well-off kids at a nice museum in the >US are not our target market. Trying to make any sort of assumption >based on what these children do in a short amount of time would be >even less informative. > >And lastly trying to have these weekly information sessions serve >OLPC feels really tacky and likely to hurt our relationship with the >MIT Museum. They are in the business of fostering knowledge and >information sharing. It just so happens that they like OLPC and >want to spread knowledge about what we're doing. If they start >trying to get their customers to do formal and (for children) boring >testing, they're going to lose customers. > >This idea needs some rethinking before we drop it on the Museum >staff and volunteers. > >--Seth > > _______________________________________________ Testing mailing list [email protected] http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/testing
