Understanding the fidelity effect when evaluating games with children

Abstract

There have been a number of studies that have compared evaluation results from prototypes of different fidelities but very few of these are with children. This paper reports a comparative study of three prototypes ranging from low fidelity to high fidelity within the context of mobile games, using a between subject design with 37 participants aged 7 to 9. The children played a matching game on either an iPad, a paper prototype using screen shots of the actual game or a sketched version. Observational data was captured to establish the usability problems, and two tools from the Fun Toolkit were used to measure user experience. The results showed that there was little difference for user experience between the three prototypes and very few usability problems were unique to a specific prototype. The contribution of this paper is that children using low-fidelity prototypes can effectively evaluate games of this genre and style.

Investigating the Fidelity Effect when Evaluating Game Prototypes with Children

“…In a study of a matching game the children could physically play the low-fidelity version and this resulted in there being no significant difference between the versions after they had played the game (Sim et al, 2013). However it may simply be down to the fact that the children struggled to imagine how the game mechanics would work, as well as finding it difficult to visualise the game play.…”

“…It is noted from the literature that the majority of these studies have been performed with adults and it is unclear whether the findings can be generalized to children. In one study evaluating usability and user experience with children (Sim et al, 2013), a matching game of various levels of fidelity revealed no significant difference in user experience and the same usability problems were reported across the three prototypes. The limitations of this study were that it only analysed one game genre in which the children could physically interact with all prototype versions, and this is not always the case in game genres such as, first person shooters and platform games.…”

“…To produce the lower fidelity version, the game was reverse engineered by capturing screen grabs of the actual game and tracing them using Adobe Illustrator, see Figure 2. Six screens were captured in this way to enable an accurate portrayal of the game and this approach has been used successfully in another study (Sim et al, 2013). Text was then added to make a storyboard to explain the game concept and to outline the interactions required to play the game.…”

Experience evaluations for human–computer co-creative processes – planning and conducting an evaluation in practice

“…It is considered a useful descriptor for user experience (Sim, Cassidy, & Read, 2013), but also important for keeping children's attention in educational software (MacFarlane, Sim, & Horton, 2005), and for assessing their willingness to use a product altogether Sim, MacFarlane, & Read, 2006). Fun appeared as an evaluation metric in both the user experience evaluation review by Lachner et al (2016) and in the creativity support system literature in the description of casual creators by Compton and Mateas (2015).…”

Using the MemoLine to capture changes in user experience over time with children

“…Here, we aimed to examine how MemoLine could be utilized in other environments in which children access technology on a regular basis. There are a large number of studies within CCI that are run within schools [48,49] and it is important to understand whether the tool is appropriate within this environment. Based upon the case studies presented, the MemoLine will be critiqued on its use for different applications and guidelines will be synthesized for the use of MemoLine in a variety of contexts.…”