Week 12
Playtests, playtests, playtests…
Lazer Mouse’s 12th week was full of playtesting sessions. We tested our app at William Penn Elementary School on Friday thanks to Dr. Todd Keruskin and Mika Long from Elizabeth Forward School District. On Saturday, thanks to Shirley Saldamarco, we had guests over ETC and tested our application in our project room. On Sunday, we visited MAKESHOP to test our app with improvements from Friday and Saturday.
Application
Here is the version that we have tested this week.
Playtest Observations
4/12/13 – WILLIAM PENN ELEMENTARY SCHOOL – 1st GRADERS (6-7) – 13 play testers (5B, 8G)
1. Multiple touches on the icons did not work properly
2. Toggling pencil/eraser caused trouble as they were tapping multiple times
3. Having the anchor lead them design mostly boats
4. They knew that there were shapes and used them
5. They liked drawing a lot
6. They asked for different colors and brush sizes but they understood the etching better when we showed samples where color did not matter
7. Second touch while etching/erasing makes the whole thing vanish away, this is frustrating
8. We have to have more feedback when they have taken the shape and when they punched it
9. Latency is a huge problem (when they tapped on shapes, there were no punching – when they tried to move shapes around – when they were trying to open the drawer – when they were trying to re-size the shapes), it discourages kids to use the shapes
10. They dragged the shapes back to the sidebar to put away them
11. They wanted to refresh the design area
12. Etching and erasing lines go beyond the cardboard area.
13. Punching the shapes is not intuitive.
14. Extreme enlarging shapes made them laugh.
4/12/13 – WILLIAM PENN ELEMENTARY SCHOOL – 2nd GRADERS (7-8) – 10 play testers (5B, 5G)
1. They asked for different colors for etching.
2. They tried dragging the pencil and eraser before clicking.
3. Erasing lines vanishes with double touch.
4. Erasing causes outlines.
5. Eraser causes latency.
6. They dragged the shapes to the drawer to get rid of them.
7. Eraser brush size is too small.
8. They asked for clearing the canvas
9. Punching does not have enough feedback.
10. They merged different shapes to design various shapes.
11. “I’ll go to the museum to use this!”
4/12/13 – WILLIAM PENN ELEMENTARY SCHOOL – 3rd GRADERS (8-9) – 10 play testers (3B, 7G)
1. Eraser leaves outlines.
2. The loading time & glitching frustrates kids.
3. Tapping/ Touches did not work well.
4. They asked for more colors for etching.
5. They dragged shapes back to the drawer to return them.
4/12/13 – WILLIAM PENN ELEMENTARY SCHOOL – 4th GRADERS (9-10) – 10 play testers(5B, 5G)
1. They tried dragging the pencil. But after trying couple of times, they understood how it works.
2. They kept tapping on the icons.
3. Pinch and zoom requires explanation.
4. Eraser brush is too small.
5. Kids use pencil and eraser more than shapes. They told that they feel more creative with etching.
6. Feedback of punching is missing.
7. Second touch on etching/erasing vanishing is frustrating.
8. They moved the shapes to the drawer to get rid of them.
9. Eraser goes beyond the cardboard.
4/12/13 – WILLIAM PENN ELEMENTARY SCHOOL – 5th GRADERS (10-11) – 13 play testers (5B, 8G)
1. They double tap for punching.
2. Latency is a huge problem.
3. If their interaction did not work, they tried to do it some other way.
4. While the shape is on board, they tried to draw and the shape disappeared.
5. Eraser leaves outlines and it confuses kids.
6. Etching and erasing lines go beyond the cardboard area.
7. They wanted to refresh the design area.
8. They like drawing, there were lots of drawing going on.
9. They combined different shapes to design various things.
10. They used shapes more than drawing.
11. They dragged shapes back to the drawer to send them back.
12. They all understood there were shapes to stamp and they used them.
13. They felt like the eraser was too small.
4/13/13 – PLAY TEST at ETC – 17 play testers (10G, 7B)
1. The eraser adds a lot of lines. This results in lag when shapes are used and that just kills the experience.
2. Kids think of it as a drawing application (they ‘color’ the whole area).
3. The kids also seem to use the etch mode a lot, lot more than the shapes.
4. The eraser erases the boundaries too.
5. The eraser should be bigger (this should result in less lines are therefore a faster and snippier app).
6. The drawing function is more used than the shapes.
7. The shape drawer button were touched rapidly and repeatedly, it often was not working properly.
8. The erasing function is used when they want to reset the screen, and it took a long time.
4/14/13 – PLAY TEST at MAKESHOP – 8 play testers (2G, 6B)
1. We needed to change the click events to touch and when Atulit changed the code during the play test, everything became smoother.
2. We need to give more feedback for punching.
3. Tapping on the shapes needs to be responsive.
4. Cut lines should be over etching strokes.
5. Latency after erasing should be fixed.
6. Eraser cursor may be added.
Next Week!
- We will be working on our bugs.
- We will be playtesting at ETC on 4/17.
- We will be playtesting at Central Elementary School on 4/19.
- We will be setting up the laser cutter at MAKESHOP on 4/21.