based on Game Usability: Advancing the Player Experience (Ch. 6)
Heuristics is another way of saying “the rule of thumb”. They are guidelines that evaluators could use, in order to rapidly identify common issues in game design. The first attempt at compiling a set of heuristics was done by Jacob Nielsen.
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based on my reading of Game Usability: Advancing the Player Experience (Chapter 1)
Why Game Research?
A new generation of gamers has expanded at a rapid pace. The doors have flung open with new consumer demographics that have never had much of an influence in the gaming industry. This being said, game developers and publisher have the opportunity to reach a broader audience and stay competitive in the gaming industry.
Traditionally, the typical gamer’s user profiles shared many commonalities with the designers that created them. This allowed them to rely on gut intuition to make design decision. However, with the introduction of other genres such as social and casual gaming, this is no longer the case.(Isbister, 2008, Chapter 1, Section 1.1, para. 2) To appeal to a larger more diverse audience game designers need to make more informed decision.
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A local teacher asked me a question that immediately took me back to my childhood. “How do you help an eager non-English speaking parent, not feel helpless when their children come home with homework?” According to her, these parents want to do the very best for their kids, however their lack of understanding the English language is not allowing them to be as involved as they would like to be.
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Being a first time dad has been the most amazing experience of my life. Watching my daughter grow, and witnessing her constant exploration of the world around her has been extraordinary. Unfortunately when Mondays roll around, it is time for me and many other parents to drop off our kids at the babysitter. The amount of time we get to interact with each other is very minimal, and pretty sad.
In a world where we all feel so “connected”, the people that matter most have no method of remotely interacting with us. My 1 1/2 year has no twitter, or Facebook account to update. She doesn’t check into fourSquare every time we go to grandma’s house. Even with mobile phones and Skype video conferencing, there is no direct method of me interacting with her without the assistance and supervision of an adult. So basically, we could only interact with each other when another adult has both the time and is willing to put in the effort to set up an environment for us to communicate.
This got me thinking “how can my daughter and I interact during my work hours?” The first thing I did was identify the main characteristics of my daughter, back when I first started working on this project:
At this young age, children are extremely dependent on their parents and other adults for just about everything. However, there are also several activities that come as naturally as breathing and eating to a child. Two of those activities that i observed where exploration and play, many times triggered by a common catalyst of curiosity.
Children gradually explore their environment and toys and interacted with them, mastering the new skills that they learn along the way. Quickly they are able to identify all sorts of toy input locations which triggered various types of output, such as audio and visual feedback.
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I have spent the past few month deconstructing the cognitive, emotional and social attributes of children under the age of two. I have been particularly interested in understanding why children are more responsive to some toys, then they are for others. What makes a successful toy, and why? What strategies could be used in the development of a toy to foster learning opportunities, along with several other question regarding this ripe age and this medium.
This age is quite interesting since you are not only designing for the child, but also for the parent, who acts as the gatekeeper. This adds an additional level of complexity, and understanding that needs to be understood. So the first question I asked myself was, “What does a parent look for in a toy?”
According to the book, “The Blockbuster Toys”, parents look for toys that;
I added some additional bullets that I’ve noticed parents, including myself look into when purchasing a toy: Read more
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I have always had a fascination with trying to understand how the things around me work. It just so happens that after having a child, most of the thing around me are toys. Large toys, small toy, blinking lights, sounds, singing, haptics, interactivity, it is all pretty darn amazing when you sit back and really look at how much technology my little one year old daughter navigates and interacts with during play. Many time when we think of children and technology we automatically think of desktop computers and video game consoles. Although all of these are examples of technology the only interaction my daughter has with them is me telling her, “don’t touch”, and handing her a toy to distract her attention.
I decided to take a trip to my daughter’s toy collection to examine some of the sensing capabilities that her electronic toys offer. I will specifically focus on the toys input capabilities:
(At the end of the post there is a video of me trying to figure out how the LeapFrog Tag Jr works. Let me know your thoughts.)
Fisher-Price Elmo Live Encore
This is by far one my daughters favorite toys. The toy is modeled after Elmo, a Sesame Street character, which most children a quickly drawn to by his bright red color, large eyes, and youthfully fun voice.
Inputs
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After learning that Apple’s new iPad came minus a camera, I, like many people, was pretty surprised. Could it be the money aspect, “I doubt it”. There definitely is room for it on the device, so what gives? Here is my prediction. Asides from typical casual photography, the iPad will try to answer some business problems that it has had in the past, such as video conferencing. In order to do video conferencing however you need the camera to be mounted on the the front face of the iPhone. This is great in theory, but then creates a problem when you are trying to use the phone as a casual camera by not allowing you to see the display. It also puts a major damper on Augmented Reality, which has been a hot topic impossible. People have suggest front and rear camera, but that just seems like a usability nightmare, and expensive. You can’t forget Read more
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At any given moment we are all surrounded by interactivity. From using the toaster, to setting up your DVR to record your favorite show, interaction with physical objects is part of our everyday life. Coming from a web centric outlook, I typically associate words such as interactivity to the multimedia and computer software, however interaction far exceeds the spatial confines of our monitors.
Breaking free of the monitor, and starting my voyage into the physical realms of physical computing, I decided to step-back and analyze some of the physical objects that I regularly interact with. It wasn’t long before I noticed the perfect subject.
The Metro Card Vending Machine is a common place for many New Yorkers. As a matter of fact, I thought it had a rather intuitive design, until this morning. They have incorporated a sexy touch screen design, with large buttons so clumsy fingers don’t press the wrong thing. In my opinion the interface is quite intuitive and rather pleasant experience, or as pleasant as refilling your Metro Card could possibly be. Read more
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co-authored by: Adrienne Schafer
Young children learn how to recognize and identify things such as numbers and letters at school. What they don’t learn from their teachers is how to recognize and properly express emotions. This is something they are expected to learn at home, but if a young child has been abused or lives in a household where the only emotions they’re exposed to are negative, they don’t have the opportunity to gain emotional intelligence and build emotional literacy. Young children need to be taught how to properly recognize and express their emotions to fully realize their potential and to avoid unnecessary conflict in school and social settings.
EEMIO, which stands for Enabling Emotional Instruction & Observation, is a physical toy coupled with a web site that provides children with activities and lessons that help them build their emotional intelligence or EQ by developing emotional vocabulary, also known as “feeling words” as well as coping mechanisms for emotional situations. A child’s inability to express or recognize emotions can lead to behavioral problems which extend to the classroom and ultimately affect their learning experience. By understanding and learning to identify different types of emotions, children can apply methods of self-regulation.
It can be difficult for adults such as social workers to get children to discuss their feelings if they try to sit down and talk about it. Allowing young children to interact with a toy and web site provides a level of safety and familiarity that encourages them to open up more. This approach allows adults to expand on topics the child might have touched upon during their interactions with the toy.
According to the Emotional Literacy Campaign at www.feel.org “ ‘Emotional Literacy’ is the ability to recognize, understand and appropriately express our emotions.”
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