Dustin was awarded the Creative Good Fund, an endowment through Carnegie Mellon University that allows the recipient to provide their services to a non profit for a summer. Naturally, he choose Give Kids The World; which allowed him to spend this past summer working on Tom Foolery and other projects.
Part of that time was spent playtesting the current operator interface. Since the volunteers and staff vary in skill level and proficiency of technology, we geared our experience to be as user friendly as possible. The method of operation is a touch screen panel attached to a desk, where the operator will be able to view the interior castle space including the children and Tom Foolery animatronic while the show is in progress.
Play-testing the touch screen interface at Give Kids The World
Dustin set up the touch screen panel, CPU, and show controller so 6 + rounds of playtesters could go through the show in varying degrees of naivety – mimicking normal daily operation. What we found is that we were mostly successful in developing a simple, robust interface. Where we failed is when the operator was given multiple options. We need to simplify and streamline where we have divergent story options.
To iterate on our UX, Rajat will take the feedback from playtesting staff and volunteers at Give Kids The World along with our own findings to streamline the operator experience. We will then playtet again and make any final adjustment prior to our final installation. This is just one way in which we are taking feedback to actively iterate on and personalize our experience for our client.