Usability testing with children: Laboratory vs field studies

Abstract

Usability testing has traditionally been conducted in dedicated laboratory. Alternatively, field study can be an option to conduct the usability testing. As HCI researchers who work with children, we have experiences in conducting usability tests in both natural and laboratory environments. We tested two different children applications in two different environments: testing drawing applications at their preschool and testing an educational game in our usability laboratory. Thus, this paper highlights our experiences in conducting both usability tests. Although the literature suggests that laboratory and field studies should be done for two different purposes, our experiences have told us that we can actually integrate the steps of field studies into the guidelines for lab tests. These steps are particularly useful for the novice designers and researchers who have never done usability evaluations with children before.

Role Of Context In Usability Evaluations: A Review

“…Both refer to the physical and the social context taken together. [32] Mobile website [33] Mobile [34] Mobile commerce application [23] Drawing application [35] Commercial website [36] E-commerce website [37] Multimodal mobile application [38] Mobile phone [39] Video tapes [41] Online library catalogues Physical context is addressed by many studies whereas, the social context in usability evaluations is explored by a fewer studies. Most of the studies show that the context (physical and social) has an impact on the outcomes of the evaluations.…”

“…It is possible to employ facilities for collection of highquality data such as video recording of the display and user interaction [22]. Razak et al [23] states that the evaluation done in the laboratory has several advantages. First, the conditions for conducting research can be controlled.…”

“…The physical context may include the location, the temperature, the time, the light etc. [23] conducted usability testing with children in both laboratory and field. Drawing applications were tested in their preschool and an educational game was tested in the usability laboratory.…”

A usability test protocol for evaluating mixed reality environments

“…Laboratory evaluations take place in a controlled environment where subjects are assigned, variables are provided and manipulated under simulated real-life scenarios (Razak et al, 2010;Martínez and Bandyopadhyay, 2014). An alternative to the laboratory evaluation method is the field evaluation method which is performed under dynamic conditions that cannot be simulated in a laboratory environment.…”

“…This stage is intended to provide quantitative data on the tests. The second method to evaluate the usability of the system is to conduct surveys to obtain user's opinions about the tested system (Razak et al, 2010). In this method, the task steps defined in the laboratory environment are followed and video/audio recordings are taken.…”