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.

Nielson’s 10 Heuristics

1. Visibility of system status
2. Match between system and real world
3. User control and freedom
4. Consistency and Standards
5. Error prevention
6. Recognition rather then recall
7. Flexibilty and efficiency of use
8. Aesthetic and minimalist design
9. Help Users recognize, diagnose, and recover from errors
10. Help and documentation

From Nielsen, J. Usabilty Engineering, 1993, p.26

The main concern with Nielsen’s list was that they where extremely broad, which made the list difficult for novice evaluators that might need a little detail on what to look for. Since then, there have been various other publication that offered variations including Nokia, who focused mainly on mobile game heuristics.

The Pros to using Heuristic

• Fast: heuristic evaluation could be done early in the development cycle.
• Cheap: user testing requires compensation for participant, testers, and experts.
• Easy: heuristics only requires 3 evaluators, two of which could be novice.only requires 3 evaluators, two of which could be novice. This requires heuristics that are more specific.

The Cons to using Heuristic

• Not representative: you are not testing with the users.
• The more specific the list the longer it is, so evaluation could take longer.
• The data you get won’t be very helpful for empirical studies.
• Heuristic evaluation alone will only fine about 75% of usability issues

When should you use Heuristics?
Heuristics do not require a functioning game, so they could be done very early in the development process. This allows for problems and questionable interactions to be identified, fixed, or removed from the entirely before any programing takes place. Just like in Quality Assurance, you should iteratively test and run regressions test to insure that no “fixes” created other usability problems.

Ultimately, you should scan the game to expose and correct as many obvious and critical issues in the game. Once complete, you should move on to user testing to uncover any problems that the evaluator missed.

How to do Heuristic Evaluations

1. Choose a list of heuristic to follow, or create your own.
2. Have three to five evaluators, with individual evaluations that they complete separately
3. Each problem is given a severity rating and is tied back to a Heuristic it relates too. By associating an issue with a heuristic, it adds credibility to the problem.
4. Evaluators combine all the list into one rough master list
5. Problems that at least two evaluator agree on stay on the list, all others are open to discussion
6. Create a report, which may include recommendation. Note that evaluators aren’t hired to solve problems, just find them, so the final solution comes from the designer.
7. Game team fixes issues

Dont confuse heuristic evaluation for…..

• …user testing. If you have users then let then avoid asking them to analyze, since that will take away from the game experience.
• …standards. Standards are strict rules that designers follow “Use this X font at Y size for captions”. Heuristics are simply guidelines for evaluation.

Helpful Heuristic Examples
Heuristic Evaluation for Playability (HEP)
Playability Heuristics for Mobile Games

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.

Game development teams have also grown, to keep up with the demand from it’s audience. Larger team, with different points of view could sometimes wreck havoc in an organization with no standardized method of making decision. Trying to rely solely on each group member’s individual hunch, is counter productive.(Isbister, 2008, Chapter 1, Section 1.1, para. 2)

All of these factors make it necessary for qualitative and quantitative data to help gain a deeper understanding of the target audience, and how well your game is doing in fulfilling their expectations.

Usability Testing
Usability focuses on making an experience intuitive for the user. It is important to understand however, what might be intuitive to one user, may not be for someone with limited exposure with similar systems (Isbister, 2008, Chapter 1, Section ?, para. ?). Usability also pays attention to the cognitive limits in a user’s memory, perception and attention. (Isbister, 2008, Chapter 1, Section 1.2, para. 1).

Play Testing & Quality Assurance
One of the main differences from play testing and usability testing, is that play testing focuses on fun and identifying any frustration points. The caveat, with play testing is that there must be a playable version of the game, as early in the development cycle as possible so it is an easier fix.

Quality Assurance, typically tends to happen latter in the development process. It focus is on identifying bugs and game tuning. This would include adjusting the difficulty of a level. (Isbister, 2008, Chapter 1, Section 1.2, para. 2).


Reference:
Isbister, K (2008) Game Usability: Advancing the Player Experience [Kindle]


As I mentioned earlier, this really hits home for me. I was the first child of 2 South American immigrants, both fought hard to get me the very best education they could. I remember my mom, with her extremely broken English, having all my spelling words written on the inside of the kitchen counter. She constantly had me drill spelling words, not having any idea what they meant, as I sat in the kitchen while she washed the dishes. I also recall her using a cassette recorder and having me record myself say words, so I would teach myself phonics. Since she couldn’t correctly pronounce the words, she’d have me listen to myself pronounce the words a million or two times. Both of these where great, and was my quick answer back to the teacher, however now this question is lingering in my head, and I know there must be a better way. The reality is, I have always struggled with spelling and literacy, but i was able to learn enough to get by.

My questions to everyone, especially those in ESL or coming from similar backgrounds, “What worked for your family or classroom?” The teacher teaches a first grade class, with about 50% Spanish speaking, in a predominately low income neighborhood.

Obviously since I love trying to solve problems, this will end up being my next project. Would love any input!

My Challenge
How do i create a way for “both” parent and child to increase their literacy in a fun and social sort of way?

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:

• My daughter was one year old.
• Her vocal communication ability was in the preliminary stages of development
• Her motor skills where still not fully developed, so complex tasks like using a keyboard or mouse where not possible.
• She needs adult assistance to use our everyday communication tools that available to us (moble and land-line phones, computers, etc).

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.

Many people are quick to suggest that we need to expose children to computers at an early age, I don’t disagree.  However, there is no reason that we need to take a child to a some cold desk, when where they are already in-front of their toy box. Why not instead bring the computer to them, in their own natural environment, and make them available on their own terms. Computers come in various shapes and sizes, and are all around us. In washing machines, toasters, and most of the objects we interact with on a daily basis have them. Just look around you right now, I’m sure you would be surprised on the amount of digital technology that is surrounding you at this moment.

Digital toys, and interactive plush dolls are nothing new. Companies suck as Leap Frog have thrived on making toys which have been getting smarter and smarter. With the introduction of micro-controllers embedded deep inside their soft cuddly exterior, there are endless possibilities.  So that was my answer, I would prototype a interactive based toy solution, that both an adult and child could easily use to communicate with each other.  It is too easy to go into fantasy land with a project like this, so here were my self-imposed rules:

1. The toy must not cost more then $39 retail, since that is my personal breaking point for interactive toys.
2. It must work anywhere, and not be totally dependent on a network connection.
3. The child must need zero guidance to interact with the toy.
4. The toy must promote exploration
5. There must be some learning activities.
6. I must be able to interact with the toy from my office

Putting it all Together

I knew that I would like a toy that enabled “me” to interact with my child via audio or video, however I started seeing that as an obvious solution and not very cost of effective.  Why should parents be forced to buy individual toys for each person that would like to interact with the child?  My daughter has a mother, aunts, grandparents, etc. Would it be feasible of me buying one for each person?  More importantly, would the child be able to interact with such a fragmented family of toys at such an early age? What would be the total cost, $39 a piece? That is pretty steep, and won’t work as a solution in my opinion.  Taking all these questions into account gave me my “ah-ha” moment.  My family and I are part of my daughter’s social network, as exclusive as it may be. Looking at the toy as a social network would mean incorporating several functions that a typical social network would have.  I decided that the most important social network functions that my toy should support where:

• Avatars
• Buddy List
• Messaging

The Birth of my ChatterPillar

I decided to go with a completely modular design, so I could play off the metaphor of a family unit. One unit, one toy, multiple facets. Each facet containing unique actions associated to that family member. The modular design would also allow me to add and remove modules as I please.  This allows my toy to take a very literal approach to a buddy list.  If you wanted to add a buddy you would have to physically add your buddy to the toy and vice-versa. It also allowed for an interesting business model, add all the costly circuitry in the head (the brain) and allow for less expensive body modules to take advantage of the brains powersupply, and various other components like speakers, memory, etc. This along with some inner circuit  communication was all i needed to create the beginnings of what turned out to be myChatterPillar.  Bellow is a video showing my initial alpha prototype of myChatterPillar in action.

Main Features

My ChatterPillar has several features that have been incorporated into the design.

1. There is a photo sleeve on each of the detachable modules which serve as an avatar.
2. There are 3 audio switches. The one beneath the photo is to identify the family member, and the two on the legs is for adding any other audio, like messages, song, etc. These audio buckets are created online by the adult via a accompanying web site, and the files are later synced to the toy via a tethered USB connection.
3. Adults could remotely communicate with the toy and send messages to it via familiar technology such as email, twitter and SMS
4. Embeded assessments to test the child’s familiarity with their family and colors.

Where to go from here

My next steps are to take this toy out of it’s bread board stage, and into a more complete embodiment. I initially looked at this project as a method of communicating with my daughter, but would be great to get it out there some day so other families could also enjoy interacting with their young children. To be continued….

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;

• Child’s Safety
• Child’s Continued Enjoyment (play value)
• Child’s Creativity
• Child’s Mental & Physical Development
• Child’s Success
• Child’s Health
• Child’s Love

I added some additional bullets that I’ve noticed parents, including myself look into when purchasing a toy:

• Brand Loyalty: Parent could be very loyal to brand names.  There is a strong element of trust when a parent purchases a toy for their child.  Parent trust that Fisher-Price would not put a toy on the shelf that would be dangerous. Others may trust that Leap Frog toys will help their children become smarter.  Your options here are either try to license your toy with a company that has the brand recognition that could help proppel your toy, or make sure to market your company in a way that best reflects the goals of your merchandise.
• Cleaning: How easy is it to clean this toy? At this age kids put toys in their mouths, and parents are sometimes extra cautious constantly cleaning their toys.
• Durability: Will this toy sustain all the punishment that a young child puts on the toy?
• Cost: This one really depends, but is a factor.  I some condition where other bullets such as “Child’s Continued Enjoyment” are high, parent’s may make addition investment. Your goal as a designer, should be to keep the cost as low as possible. I’ve hear that you should imagine all the parts of a toy in a bag and then multiply the cost by 4. That should give you an idea of what the on the shelf cost would be.

What is going on in their little heads?
Although each child is unique, there are some common developmental characteristics that we could use to help and identify common attributes. Through these attribute I’ve been hopping to uncover some rough guidelines to follow when creating toys for this age group.

Albeit, many toys on the market rely on gimmicks or piggy back on the shoulders of licensed characters to attract a child’s curiosity. However, all children have emotional needs that they expect to get fulfilled during play. According to the book The Blockbuster Toy, “The fulfillment of these  deep emotional needs is the fun that creates a smile” , and this results in a child’s consistent play interactions with the toy.

So what are some child’s emotional needs that anyone designing interaction for children in this age group should look into?

• Pride
• Self-Esteem
• Appreciation/Attention
• Accomplishment/Mastery
• Power/Empowerment
• Control
• Silliness
• Independence/Freedom (harmless rebellion)
• Belonging
• Love Nurturing
• Security
• Fear Reduction/Bravery
• Sensory Gratification
• Mental and Physical Development

I narrowed down this list of bullets that fall inline with the child’s development at this point. As they get older, things like fantasy and role playing also start to appear.

What do children know at this age?

The first place to look, is at the child’s stage of development. Jean Piaget, a Swiss epistemologist that focused his research around the development of children of this age to be in their Sensory Motor Stage of development:

Sensorimotor stage: from birth to age 2. Children experience the world through movement and senses (use five senses to explore the world). During the sensorimotor stage children are extremely egocentric, meaning they cannot perceive the world from others’ viewpoints. The sensorimotor stage is divided into six substages: “(1) simple reflexes; (2) first habits and primary circular reactions; (3) secondary circular reactions; (4) coordination of secondary circular reactions; (5) tertiary circular reactions, novelty, and curiosity; and (6) internalization of schemes.”

Love and Security

Children at this stage of development need to feel safe and loved. Many of the children in the lower part of this demographic still rely solely on their mother for nourishment.  This bonding along with all the hugs and kisses they get from their parents, help a child feel the security they need to find their place in this world, and with their family. Children will sometimes show their love and nurturing to a toy doll by snuggling up with it.

Language

Children at this age recognize voices and the emotions that they convey.  Although a child at this age is just beginning to create a vocabulary, they do understand much of what you are saying to them.  Like little sponges they start to develop a schema for spoken words and actions and objects. Eventually, towards the child starts to experiment with their own voice to mimic sounds.

Babies of this age could also identify familiar voices.  If you put mommy on speaker phone they may start looking around the room to see where mommy is.

This is a perfect time to give a child an opportunity to make connection and experiment with language to help with their development.  The more a toy allows a child to be vocal, the quicker they will learn how to control their vocal instrument.

People and Objects

Children at this age are good with faces. Babies could recognize face structures and they use physical characteristics,  characteristic expressions, postures and movements to identify specific individuals to create mental models of people. Many times, when a baby sees a photo of mommy, they could easily make the correlation between mommy and the photo, and results in a smile and excitement. This same process happens with objects that they discover and interact with, however these mental models are very generalized. Although they may know what a doggie is, they may also think a cow is doggie, or any other animal that has 4 legs.

How do children play at this age?
Children at this preliminary stage of development are self-centered. They don’t do well in collaborative play since their social development has not ripened. Concepts like “sharing” do not come naturally till later in this stage, or possibly well into the following stage, depending on how quickly their socialization skills develop. Through these formative years, you will see more “parallel play”. Typically, children are in their own little world playing, even if there is another child playing right next to them. Creating a toy that requires collaboration or cooperation would probably be too advanced for this age group.

Structure is a “no go” with young children. They are more interested in “free play”. These children lack the cognitive ability to play a game with rules or activities that require advanced forms of interaction. Keeping it simple with clear feedback is the way to go. Simple switches with blinking lights and audio work well, but don’t feel as though that is all you could do. You could get creative and create some interesting simple interaction from a ball with an embedded tilt sensor.  As with any design limitation, it could usually be solved with creativity.

This age group is packed with little explorers, constantly scanning the room and objects for something to interact with.  They enjoy to the feeling of empowerment when their actions result in sort of feedback (lights, audio, parent’s laughter).  Once they discover a “cause and effect” interaction, they will sometimes continue testing their hypothesis over and over.  If you have ever seen a child that discovers how to open a kitchen cabinet, you will know what i mean. Open, close, open, close … parent buys a cabinet lock.
Conclusion
After following all these guidelines the truth of the matter is that the toy industry is a tough to break into.  There are only a handful of successful toys that make it big each year, while thousands of others collect dust on shelves, if they get on the shelves at all.  The one piece of advice that I read though my research which really made sense is, “Do it for the smiles, not the money”.  That is the essence of toy building, before companies like Mattel and Hasbro came along, parent would create toys simply for getting the satisfaction of watching the smiles on their children’s faces. The other piece of advice is don’t get married to any idea. If you get too emotionally invested in an idea, it will not allow you to see it’s flaws. Unless you are making the toy for yourself, then you need to step back and see what of your audience’s goals you have accomplished.

References
What Kids Buy and Why: The Psychology of Marketing to Kids
Blockbuster Toy!, The: How to Invent the Next BIG Thing
Marketing to the New Super Consumer: Mom & Kid

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

• Push Buttons: Typically buttons on toys are visually obvious, however Fisher Price decided to create an exploratory interaction by spreading out four button throughout the plush doll. Three of the buttons are hidden under the fabric, on the toe, chest, and back, and the final button switch is closed by squeezing his nose.
• Tilt Sensor: One of the nice additions that the creators added to the toy was integration of a Tilt Sensor. When Elmo falls on his side, he politely ask for help to stand backup, which is sometime accompanied with a joke.

LeapFrog Learn & Groove™ Musical Table

We originally got this toy when our daughter was showing signs of wanting to stand on her own. The toy itself is stuffed with several auditory and visual feedback that really grabs her attention.

Inputs

• Push Buttons: Typically buttons on toys are visually obvious, however Fisher Price decided to create an exploratory interaction by spreading out four button throughout the plush doll. Three of the buttons are hidden under the fabric, on the toe, chest, and back, and the final button switch is closed by squeezing his nose.
• Toggling Buttons: From watching my daughter play with this section of the table, I noticed that the design decision was probably based around learning not only shapes, but also cause and effect. When she presses one, the previously pressed button switch pops up to an open state.
• Flipping : This might be one of my daughter favorite interactions. It may be partly due to the fact that we read a lot of books to her, or it might just be an intrinsic curiosity that makes her want to flip things over. Feedback is dispatched when the child flips the pages of the book on the center of the toy, and also when they open the small compartment on one of the sides. I would imagine that the switch is hidden on the hinge of the book. Each page has individual hinges that are associate with it. Once the page is flipped and crosses the angular threshold an embedded audio file is dispatched, along with some dancing LEDs.
• Slider: The slider, is a “slider” in the physical interaction sense of the word. However the slider does not send an analog signal, or at least is doesn’t technically need too. I believe that the reason for the design decision was mainly an educational one to create opportunity to exercise multiple sensory motor functions (sliding, twisting, pushing, flipping, etc.)

LeapFrog My Pal Violet

This product is actually one of my favorites. In the exterior it seems like a pretty straight forward digitally enhanced plush toy, but it add another layer of interaction for the parent, which evolves connecting the toy to the computer via USB and downloading audio files onto the toy. There is also some slight visual feedback from the LED that is housed in the plastic bone around the toy’s neck.

Inputs

Push Buttons: There are 4 normally open push buttons, each living on one of the plush dog’s paws. All the buttons, have iconic representations of the type of audio that it will dispatch once the switch is closed: Music, Action, Lullaby , and Power Off.

Parental Interaction
Keyboard/Mouse: The toy comes with a desktop application that syncs with the toy via USB. The parent could then select which audio files to have the available to the toy. They are also able to personalizing some the interaction, by selecting from a list of names.

LeapFrog Spin and Sing Alphabet Zoo

This was probably the first toy that my daughter mastered at a couple months old. She almost looked like a boxer spinning the all the letters round and round, and enjoy the audio that is dispatched on the toys active state. Once the action stops, and the spinning section comes to a stop, the audio dispatches which animal or letter is in between the arrows, sort of like the large wheel from Wheel of fortune.

Inputs

Without gutting this toy (my wife would kill me) I’m not too sure how they made this work, however my best guess is:

Metal roller/ball bearing & Metal Plate contact: each of the 25 selections have individual plates that are connected to some sort of Shift register or multiplexer. As the the spinning action occurs the fixed conductive roller stays in contact with each of the plates that passes by. Once an individual contact is closed for about a second, the spin cycle is assumed to have finished, and the appropriate audio file is dispatched. Not sure if this is accurate since this may add friction. I can’t be sure unless i open it up.

Here is a video of my daughter playing with this toy:

LeapFrog Learn & Groove Counting Maracas

These are bionic baby rattles/maraca that sense when they are being shaken. Once they are shaken an array of lights and melodies start to play. These are lots of fun, and has an added affordance of making adults act like complete fools.

Input

• Slide Switch: This is just a simple multi state switch to adjust various mode settings
• Accelerometer or Tilt Switch: Not sure exactly how they are sensing movement, but typically you would use either a tilt switch, or accelerometer. I would put money on the tilt switch mainly for cost, and being that the accelerometer may be overkill.

Fisher-Price Go Baby Go! Crawl-Along Musical Ball

We bought this toy when the baby was in the brink of starting of crawling. The interaction involves rolling the ball and watch the illusion of the monkey keeping it’s balance, while letting out some humorous squeals.

Input
The only input for this toy is sensing that the ball is in movement. Since the ball roll only in one direction, I would imagine a spinning tilt switch is all that was needed to sense when the ball was in motion.

LeapFrog Tag Junior Book Pal – Purple

One of my friends bought this toy for my daughter, which is a bit advanced for her, however extremely impressive. This toy serves a scaffold for children that are learning to read. By simply touching the pen on the area of the word, it dispatches an audio files that speaks the word that they child selected.

Input

It is totally beyond me how this technology works, but I will post up a video of me trying to guess. No idea if will actually be right, and unfortunately I need to wait till my daughter could read before I could take it apart, so a guess will do for now.


My guess on how the LeapFrog Tag Junior works:

Update: So it turns out I was correct…woohoo! I did a few searches and ran into the LeapFrog FlyPaper Pen. I didn’t event know LeapFrog made this. Anyhow, I downloaded the manual and this is what it says under “How it works”. (would have been a lot easier if they added that section in the Tag manual).

I also found another guy who made a video about the same exact topic, and had the same answer. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A6yKZ1wjUgg

So here is my prediction, for what ever it is worth..

The very first hardware add-on for the iPad will advertise will be a swivel camera which will connect to the phone as a peripheral device and answer the question of both parties. This will be great for the Augmented reality, video conferencing, and casual photographers who are all equally as upset at the decision to ax it out of the iPad. It will also make it much easier for asset creation on their iWorks and other production apps.

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.

This morning, on the machine next to the one that i was using, a tourist proved me wrong. It turns out that the touchscreen is just one of several interfaces on the vending machine, and although the tourist easily navigated the metro card touchscreen buying experience, she still needed to interact with other parts of the machine that obviously didn’t receive as much love.

As the tourist selected her card type, amount, and payment type everything seemed great. She then dipped her credit card into the credit card slot, entered in her pin or zip depending on payment type and BOOM! The screen asked her to press “Enter”. Since I was there observing her interaction with the machine, I let her argue with the machine a little while to see how long it would take her to figure it out… At least a minute passed and she started getting visible upset, her friend yelled out from the other side of the turnstile, “Just forget it and go to the booth!” Finally, I stepped in before she became completely ballistic and let her know that the enter is actually on the credit card keypad labeled ENT over the pound sign (#). She thanked me and went on her way.

At that moment the tourist may have felt stupid, but is she really stupid? Could the design be flawed? Stepping back and examining the interface which i have now identified as the “entire machine”, and not just the sexy touch screen, a couple things stand out. The first thing I noticed was that there are two separate inputs, the multi-touch screen and credit card keypad. This inherently splits the users attention jumping back and forth from screen to keypad, possibly causing confusion on what they should be looking at next. Although, moving the keypad to a digital version on the touch screen may seem like a viable answer, this would causes an added level of confusion by interrupting the spatial congruity that the credit card slot and the keypad have. So what is the answer? In the book, The Art of Interactive Design: A Euphonious and Illuminating Guide to Building Successful Software, Chris Crawford describes interactivity as:

interaction: a cyclic process in which two actors alternately listen, think, and speak.

As the tourist was interacting with the Metro Card vending machine she was essentially communicating with the physical object.

“Please enter your zipcode and press Enter”

Obviously, the tourist can’t speak to the machine vocally, but she could communicate her selection through the buttons that are presented. Since the tourist could not find the Enter key she essentially was stripped of the ability to communicate, placing a muzzle on her interactive experience.

A possible solutions that may have worked better by simply rewording the communication, may have looked like this:

“Please enter your zipcode and press # on the keypad bellow”

If you aren’t going to write out ‘ENTER’ and simply use ‘ENT’ on the pound key (#) that now serves a multiple function, then why bother having an enter key at all. Either add a physical key that serves the singular purpose of being ‘ENTER’, or make sure to properly communicate the design flaw to the user to avoid any confusion.

This brought up a couple great points that designers of physical computing should be aware of:

• Don’t assume a task is obvious, although it may be obvious to you it may be confusing to someone else.
• Sometimes you may be forced to use components that are not ideal, but meet the need in other ways such as budget, time and convenience. Do your best to make sure that any confusing interaction is properly scaffolded to minimize error and avoid frustration

Background

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.”

“If teachers and other significant adults do not encourage them to express their emotions, then children of both sexes can be at risk for emotional, behavioral, academic, and social problems that can be carried into adulthood. Helping children to express themselves verbally and in writing plays a key role in nurturing resiliency in preschool and throughout academic life.” (Novick, R. 2002)

Using a combination of therapy techniques, an interactive toy and a web site, EEMIO will teach young children how to identify feelings and cope with negative emotions, in a fun, hands-on way, improving their emotional intelligence and helping them deal with social conflict at school and at home.

EEMIO’s Objectives

• Recognize that everyone has emotions
• Understand and interpret “feeling words” in order to communicate vocally or in written words.
• Differentiate between emotions through visual and/or auditory means.
• Understand that events influence emotion.
• Classify hypothetical events that would elicit a specific emotion.
• Implement strategies for behavioral modification and anger management
• Execute procedural strategies to assist in problem solving.
• Comprehend that actions can influence other people’s emotional states

.

Primary Target Audience

Demographic Characteristics

• Ages 5-7
• Elementary school
• Have played with toys
• Enjoy role playing
• Have played video games before (infrequent to frequent game play)
• Have behavioral or physical issues

Cognitive Characteristics

• Low prior knowledge of emotional intelligence
• Varying levels of social and communication skills
• Starting to develop empathy towards others

All children who interact with EEMIO are expected to be supervised by adults, including social work professionals, counselors, teachers and parents. EEMIO attempts to open up dialog with children who might be closed off to adults but feel more comfortable talking with or through EEMIO. Some of these children will be living in circumstances that put them under emotional stress, so it is especially important that they learn to express their feelings. Studies have shown that in modern society, “As children grow ever smarter in IQ, their emotional intelligence is on the decline.” (Goleman, D. 2005) Thus children with and without problems will be able to benefit from EEMIO.

Secondary Target Audience

• Social Worker
• Guidance Counselor
• Special Education Teacher
• Day Care Center
• Early Childhood Education (Pre K-1)
• Parents

The Idea

EEMIO is a dual experience with tight integration between the physical toy and the web site. Although it is not out of the ordinary for toys to be coupled with other sorts of activities and mediums, most of the time these experiences are disjointed. EEMIO enables synchronicity through constant communication between the toy and the computer program.

Emotion is a topic and skill that must be externalized and communicated to others. EEMIO enables selected members of the learner’s community to be involved both inside and outside of the play experience. As a community, teachers, counselors,and parents, can take an active role in the emotional growth of their children. Through the use of EEMIO, they have access to “The Parent’s Corner” which gives them important information regarding emotional literacy, and allows them to have direct access to various assessment tools measuring growth in the child.

The above adult facilitators, will also take major roles in the desktop game activities provided by the EEMIO experience. Embedded as non-playing characters they will be represented in the child’s game play activities, and serve as an extension of their support. This functionality will be described in more detail under the desktop game character roles section of this document. The chart on the left demonstrates the organizational framework of the EEMIO experience.

Although activities may vary over time, the overall interaction
flow stays consistent throughout. This iterative process takes the learner through the stages of problem solving.

Interactions are broken up into 7 stages:

1. Playing with EEMIO: During this period the learner plays with the EEMIO toy through participating in various activities.
2. Defining the problem: During play, EEMIO transition through various emotions. The toy communicates the emotion in the form of narrative storytelling, creating a backstory that will give meaning to the subsequent activities.
3. Confronting the problem: EEMIO directs the learner to go to the computer and help find a way for it to feel better. Supplied with the narrative backstory the learner explores the EEMIO desktop game and participates in various problem solving activities.
4. Receiving Tool: As the learner explores the virtual environment, they are met by various non-playing characters, such as the Teacher/School Social Worker. This virtual character teaches the learner various techniques for developing emotional coping strategies that may help EEMIO.
5. Practicing to use the tool: Throughout the game, learners will be confronted with activities that allow them to use and share tools.
6. Analyzing effectiveness: The learner’s effective, or ineffective use of the tools is directly correlated to EEMIO’s emotional meter bar on the bottom of the screen.
7. Resolving the problem: Once the meter reaches 100% capacity, EEMIO is once again happy, and grateful.
8. Gain a Reward: After each mission, a reward is granted to the learner in the form of a newly unlocked activity in the physical toy, or a ribbon or badge in the online game.

Toy Platform

EEMIO, is an electronic plush toy which incorporates internal sensors which include, a gyroscope and accelerometer that detect the toy’s orientation at all times. The toy is also WiFi enabled, allowing it to sync through a LAN connection, and pass data back and forth. The data is then stored in a solid state Flash Drive that is also embedded inside the toy.

All interaction is programed in the toy’s internal micro-controller. Actions are parsed through EEMIO’s program, and appropriate feedback is dispatched via embedded speakers, visual LEDs, and haptic servo.

EEMIO’s Toy Design

Form: EEMIO is an androgenous toy, suitable for both male and female children. Due to the possibility of multiple users in a therapy environment, the toy should be constructed with durable material that is easily removable and washable.

EEMIO is shaped like a tetrahedron, which allows the representation
of four separate emotions in one toy. This creates an affordance for exploratory interaction, allowing children to quickly move from one emotion to another.
Another reason for the use of a tetrahedron is the shapes’ unique capability to rest on all sides. This makes it possible to always have one active state on the toy depending on its orientation. The toy stands at 10 inches high, and 7 inches wide making EEMIO large enough to be “huggable”, and also capable of housing; batteries, microprocessor, sensors. 4 LED buttons, servo, and a durable casing that holds all the circuitry intact.

The final consideration was EEMIO’s ability to be an extension of the child’s voice. Loren Britez, a social worker and child advocate of a West New York, NJ public school states that, “many times during therapy sessions, children find it difficult to be vocal. When this happens I [Social Worker’s] refer them to inanimate objects to help scaffold their communication.” (Britez, 2009)

Since EEMIO is comprised of different visual emotional representations, the learner could use the EEMIO’s physical form as alternate method of communicating with a therapist. When asked how they are feeling, they could simply flip EEMIO to the emotion that best describes their present state.

Function: EEMIO expresses itself through the use of auditory
feedback and cueing dialog, that is triggered via motion sensitivity, or immediately following an action taken by the user. This feedback is accompanied by visual (blinking LED buttons) and haptic responses (toy vibrates).

The integration of lights (LED) embedded in the buttons, which are located on the each of the 4 ends of the tetrahedron, serves the dual purpose of signalling the user to take an action, and visually interpreting the active emotion through the use of color.

Manner of Behavior: EEMIO is a social robot that uses dialog as a source for creating contextual mappings and narratives resulting in “meaningful” use of the content being learned.

EEMIO has three modes that are directly dependent on its current
emotional state, and whether the learner is actively logged into EEMIO’s desktop software activities.

1. Playful EEMIO: When EEMIO is happy he asks the learner to participate in several interactive activities such as, sing-a-longs, story time (choose your own adventure), and general play. During this time EEMIO actively asks the learner to talk about their feeling, through the use of open ended questioning.
2. Distressed EEMIO: In this mode EEMIO demonstrates the initial steps of problem solving, by supplying the learner with information about an unfortunate event that has caused EEMIO to feel sad, scared or angry. EEMIO then invites the learner to help resolve the issue through the use of the desktop game environment.
3. Software Synched (Feedback & Encouraging) EEMIO: Once the learner has launched the desktop application, both the EEMIO toy and the computer software wirelessly sense each other, and automatically sync. During the learner’s interaction with the game, the EEMIO toy offers “over the shoulder” feedback and any needed scaffolding.

Toy Feedback

Physical Orientation:
If at anytime EEMIO’s orientation changes to one of the four possible states (happy, sad, angry, scared), then the leaner will be supplied with an audio cue that supports the toy’s active state.

Inactivity Reminder:
Through the use of an accelerometer, and an internal timer programed into EEMIO’s software, the toy will be able to accurately estimate drops in physical engagement. In the event that EEMIO detects that it has not been interacted with for more than thirty seconds, the toy dispatches audio reflective of the toy’s emotional state to maintain engagement.

Interactive Toy Based Activities

As the learner physically interacts with the EEMIO toy, they are presented with various activities. Each of the activities support active participation through problem solving, kinesthetic reasoning, or audio cueing.

Sing-a-long:
EEMIO takes the act of singing and adds an additional level of interaction which is controlled by the learner. The songs are short, easy to memorize, age appropriate and have learning goals attached to them.

“How do you feel?”, is a song that is intended to encourage the learner to vocally state how they feel. After EEMIO instructs the learner on the singing task, EEMIO invites the learner to sing-a-long.

How do you feel?
How do you feel?
Are you glad,
are you sad?
Are you really really mad?
Just stand right up and yell,
[Leaners Audio Cue]
I’m _________!
[EEMIO: pauses for a second and states it current emotional active state]

Some activities take advantage of EEMIO’s embedded circuitry, which enables EEMIO to be aware of the active emotional state. In the following example the learner is able to control the music by simply rotating the EEMIO toy to any emotion.

“If you’re Happy and you know it, clap your hands.”
“If you’re Happy and you know it, clap your hands.”
“If you’re Happy and you know it, and you really want to show it”
“If you’re Happy and you know it, clap your hands”
[Learner flips EEMIO over to the angry side]
“If you’re Angry and you know it, stomp your feet,”
“If you’re Angry and you know it, stomp your feet,”
“If you’re Angry and you know it, and you really want to show it”
“If you’re Angry and you know it, stomp your feet.”
[Learner flips EEMIO over to the sad side]
“If you’re Sad and you know it, cry a tear, boo hoo.”
“If you’re Sad and you know it, cry a tear, boo hoo.”
“If you’re Sad and you know it, and you really want to show it”
“If you’re Sad and you know it, cry a tear, boo hoo.”
[Learner flips EEMIO over to the scared side]
If you’re scared and you know it Give a shiver. Brrrr
If you’re scared and you know it, give a shiver. Brrrr
If you’re scared and you know it and you really want to show it
If you’re scared and you know it, give a shiver. Brrrr

Story time (Choose your own adventure):
EEMIO has the ability to transmit interactive stories to the learner. These stories require the learner to chose their own adventure based on how they believe a specific event would make the character feel. There are no wrong answers in this activity, only consequences based on their decisions.
[EEMIO says]
It’s story time! When you hear [Ding!] flip me over to the emotion that describes how the character may be feeling at that moment.
[EEMIO continues reading]
”…then Johnny’s sister threw his goldfish down the toilet and flushed it!” [Sound *Ding!]
[Learner flips EEMIO over to the angry side and presses the flashing button]
[EEMIO continues reading]
”Johnny was so angry with his sister, and yelled!”
Open Ended Questioning:
Open-ended question are used to encourage a full, meaningful
answer using the learner’s own knowledge. Open-ended questions typically begin with words such as “Why” and “How”, or phrases such as “Tell me about…”. Bellow are some examples of questions that EEMIO might ask the learner.

• “Have you ever felt scared?”
• “I sometimes get scared when I hear thunder. What makes you scared?”
• “Hello! How do you feel today!?”

EEMIO Game Platform

When EEMIO is purchased, the toy comes packaged with a CD that contains the EEMIO Desktop Game environment. This Java based application, is cross-platform, and requires an internet connection to retrieve assets that sit on an off site server. Hosted media is on off site servers, allowing remote access, which also allows EEMIO to have fresh content and activities to share with the learner, enabling it to stay fresh and avoid repetition.

Game Genre

The EEMIO game borrows from the following genres and game-play types:

• Computer simulation games
• Massive Multiplayer Online Role Playing Games (MMORPG)

Game Mechanics

Emotional Meter Bar:The emotional meter is a visual representation of current emotional state of the EEMIO toy. The range of the meter spans from EEMIO’s current negative emotion (sad, scared, angry), which is dependant on the active mission, to EEMIO’s
happy emotional state.

There are several way for the learner to increase the positive emotion of the meter:

• Solving the mission fills up EEMIO’s emotion 100%
• Doing a good deed, such as giving another learner a tool from your collection.
• Communicating your problem with other learners, or non-playing characters, such as teachers, family, and social workers.

The consequence of a low meter reading is demonstrated by an increasing amount of sudden outbursts by the physical toy. These outburst are used as a method of signaling the learner to use “Tools” to help bring up stabilize EEMIO’s meter reading.

Map: The map enables the learner to travel between various locations, such as the school, the playground and their home. The learner is encouraged by non-playing characters to explore all the different locations, while trying to complete their mission.

Tools: As the learner explores the virtual world, they will meet several non-playing characters that will teach the learner skills than can help alleviate negative emotions. These tools can be used to increase EEMIO’s emotional meter reading, and can also be shared with newcomers in the virtual system that may not have the appropriate tools to help their own EEMIO dilemma.

Share: The EEMIO experience creates a conducive, safe, nonthreatening environment for communication to occur. The main goal however is for the dialog to effectively transfer outside of the virtual environment and into the learner “real life” environment.

To promote this, the virtual representation of learner’s family, teacher, and social workers have the option of adding direct communication alternatives, such as their e-mail or twitter account. If the learner feels as though they would like to share dialog, they can do so in the form of an Emotional E-Card.

Keeping in mind the target audience, most of which can not fully express themselves through text, we where faced with the challenge of creating a accessible method for productive communication to occur. The following screens explain the interaction process that the learner, must go through.

Learner to Learner Communication

Talk: The EEMIO Desktop Game is a multiuser environment which allows for multiple players to play the EEMIO game concurrently. All the learners are able see each other’s avatars on their screen in real-time. It also allows for the learners to communicate with each other via pre-scripted multiple choice dialog.

Keeping in mind the target audience (5-7 yr.), most of which can not fully express themselves through text, we were faced with the challenge of creating an accessible alternative for productive communication to occur. For this reason, dialog selections are based on both the learner’s interaction and learning goals.

Roles

Learner
The learner takes on a variety of roles while interacting with EEMIO. Their primary role, however is to assist EEMIO in developing skills that will help change negative emotions to positive ones.

During physical play the learner takes a participatory role, and is actively engaged in meaningful interaction guided by the EEMIO toy.

Once the learner moves into the desktop game environment, the learner takes on a the role of problem solver. During this interaction they will explore a virtual environment to gain needed skills and experience that will help them assist EEMIO, with his problem.

The EEMIO experience creates a conducive, safe, nonthreatening environment for communication to occur between the learners, the EEMIO toy, and embedded non-playing characters in the game system.

The presence of other learners concurrently in the multi-user environment offers the opportunity to share and talk about emotions amongst peers. More advanced learners are also able to share their acquired tools with newcomers to the system.

EEMIO Toy:
During play, EEMIO guides the learner through various activities that incorporate the learning goals. EEMIO’s goal in this role is to share activities and develop a bond which can promote empathy when EEMIO is confronted with a problem.

During game play,the EEMIO toy dispatches various auditory and haptic feedback as a result of actions taken in the desktop game environment. For example, if the learner helps another learner, EEMIO might say, “Wow, that was really nice of you to help him out!”

There are moment of deep distress during game play that affect EEMIO directly. When these moments occur in the game environment EEMIO will vibrate and get visibly upset. Moments such as these are used as cue points for the learner to use a tool that they have in their “tools” section.

Social Worker/Teacher (NPC):
A major part of the learning and interaction goal of the EEMIO game, is to learn and collect tools (skills) that allow the learner to help EEMIO feel better via non-playing characters (NPCs) embedded in the virtual world. The tools come in the shape of emotional adjustment techniques that the school social worker/teacher “teaches” the learner. These lessons take on a form of cut scenes.

Aside from parents, real-life social workers are actively involved in gauging the growth and success of the learner’s interaction with EEMIO. Social workers have access to analytical data which they can use to assess the learner’s progress, and the skills that the learner is currently using. Having this knowledge allows the facilitator to reflect on the lessons learned, and assist in transferring those lessons to the real world.

Family (NPC):
When the EEMIO toy is initially set up by a facilitator, they will be asked to enter in all the members of their family and extended family that may be important to the child. Once the learner logs in to their account they have the ability to interact with these members in the form of hugs.

As part of a formative assessment, the facilitator can get valuable data for analysis from this, such as numbers on who the learner calls on for emotional. This data could also prove beneficial to a therapist by giving them a better understanding the dynamics of the learner’s home. Each of the family member’s avatars will also include a direct method of communicating with that family member via e-mail. This interaction can also be found in the “Share” section.

The facilitator will input the e-mail address for any adults the child can share with. The facilitator can also allow an avatar but withhold the sending function so she can discuss what is sent with the parent in person, or prevent the child from communicating with abusive adults.

General NPCs:
The role of general (not family or facilitator) non-playing characters in the EEMIO game environment is to create opportunities for the learner to use and master their tools. By orchestrating mini problems in the learner’s session they can begin to develop situational awareness of other avatars in the environment, and are give the ability to share their skill with them.

Demonstrating how each emotion could derive from various different events, the learner is able to compare and contrast all the different story lines in the game, with events that may or may not have happened to them in real life.

Incentives

Change EEMIO’s Emotional State: The EEMIO toy interaction is dependant upon its current emotional state. If the child would like to have access to the “Playful “ mode, and EEMIO is in a presently in a “Distressed” state, then the learner will need to launch the desktop software environment and help EEMIO become playful again.

Unlock EEMIO Toy Activity: Each time the learner successfully completes a mission in the game, a new activity is unlocked on the EEMIO toy. This could consist of an activity such as a new story or song.

Awards: As the learner gains experience in the system, and begins their transition from newcomer to old-timer, they are awarded ribbons and badges. Providing awards is a motivational strategy to encourage active game play using the learning content.

• Ribbons are individual “game interaction awards” that have been given unique criteria. An example of an interaction would be to start conversations with at least ten other learners for five consecutive game sessions. This type of interaction would win the learner a “Social Superstar” ribbon.
• Badges are directly related to the learner’s mastery of each tool that they collect.

Once a learner is able to consistently detect emotional distress displayed by embedded NPCs and the EEMIO toy and apply the correct strategy or tool to alleviate their distress, the learner will gain mastery of a tool. This digital rewarding technique helps keep players engaged, and fosters community. Badges are valued by players as a new metric to prove mastery in a social setting. (Irwin, 2009) The average learner should be able to gain several badges in their first interaction with the game. As they become old-timers to the system, the badges are increasingly difficulty to attain.

Emotional Attachment: The EEMIO toy is consistently part of both the physical and computer-based activities. The reason for this, is to keep the toy and game from becoming separate entities. The EEMIO toy shares all the learner’s experiences, which encourages a bond between the learner and toy. This bond is what creates empathy for EEMIO in the learner, and develops intrinsic motivation to help EEMIO feel better.

New Clothes and Accessories: While exploring the desktop game, the learner may be awarded new items that they can use to customize their avatar, their family’s avatars, EEMIO’s avatar, or their home.

Pedagogical Design

Problem Based Learning: Each activity is framed around a problem that is affecting EEMIO’s emotional state. These problems are in the form of a story, which helps create context around the activity. “Because stories are essential to solving complex, everyday and professional problems, we believe that stories should form a basis for learning how to solve those problems.” (Jonassen
& Hernandez-Serrano, 2002, pg. 76)

Goal-based Scenarios: In each mission, that is situated in the desktop game environment, the learner becomes an active participant, by taking part in a “learning by doing” architecture. (Schank et al., 1993) This immersion requires the leaner to take part in real-world activities.

Multimedia Learning: In both the physical and digital interfaces, there are spoken words coupled with a visual image or picture providing information and feedback for the learner. In order to avoid unnecessary cognitive load and the split attention effect, we provide the option for the learner to turn subtitles on or off. (Mayer, 2005)

Considering the age of our target audience the primary delivery method is via auditory or pictorial means because many of them will not be able to read text. Since the learner will always be using this with an adult, the text can help the adult facilitator review what happened and prompt the child if necessary.

Community of Practice: The desktop environment of the EEMIO experience is comprised of learners that are either newcomers or old timers to the system (Vygotsky, 1978). Newcomers explore the environment in hopes of building up tools though experience, which helps to increasing their EEMIO toy’s emotional level. Old-timers, who have already gained many tools through experience, have the added ability to share their knowledge with newcomers, and as a result be rewarded through various incentives.

Interaction Design

Iconic Based Menu System (Desktop): Since the learners reading ability could span from competent reader, to very low reading ability, the main menu navigational elements are couple with symbolic representations. Learners lacking reading skills can use the illustrated representation to aid their navigation through the system.

Color Coding (Toy): The EEMIO toy uses color coding as one of the methods for the learner to differentiate what emotion the toy is currently on (Tidwell, 2005). When EEMIO is on one of it’s four emotional sides, a large LED color coded light blinks above the literal facial expression. This color coding also allows the user to avoid errors by providing a simple indicator of EEMIO’s emotional state in the event that the toy’s facial expression is not directly visible. (Lidwell et. al, 2003)

Cognitive Design

Meaningful Effects: In order to retain information, a learner must pay attention and process the information so that it can be stored in long-term memory. If information is put in the context of a story or connected to something a learner already knows, it is easier to learn and remember. (Driscoll, 2005)

Practice Effects: Practicing or rehearsing improves retention especially when it is distributed practice. By distributing practices the learner associates the material with many different contexts rather than the one context afforded by practice in a single instance.

Friendly Voice (informal): According to Mayer, “the personalization and voice principles are consistent with the idea that social cues prime a conversational stance in the learner, in which the learner sees the instructor as a conversational partner.” (Mayer, 2005 pg 277)

Repetition: The EEMIO game environment integrates the use of a badge system to demonstrate mastery of a skill. Mastery is accomplished by correctly identifying situations which require the use of a tool. The badge metaphor also serves as an intrinsic motivator for the learners to revisit acquired skills throughout their gaming sessions.

Emotional Design

Avatar and Environmental Customization: Personalizing the learner’s interaction by offering various customization options, allows the learner to have a sense of ownership within the system.

Narrative Design

Plot Based Narrative: A major part of EEMIO’s game play, is for the learner to perform the actions directed by the toy. This enables the learner to advance in the game and increase the toy’s library of possible interactions. Each mission is comprised of a backstory that is supplied by the EEMIO toy before each mission. The purpose of the backstory is to provide dramatic context for the action and interaction that is about to take place in the game (Crawford, 2003). Stories are the “means [by] which human beings give meaning to their experience of temporality and personal actions” (Polkinghorne, 1988, p. 11). By integrating storytelling, and using the narrative from of framing, less cognitive effort is required by the learner (Bruner, 1990).

Cut Scenes: Several of the non-playing characters (NPCs) scattered throughout the game environment help to further the story line and to establish tone of the game. The type of information provided to the learner ranges from the disbursement of tools, to information dumps that provide key information by NPCs. (Dickey, 2005)

Usability Testing

At all times of engagement, EEMIO stores time stamped data relevant to both physical (toy) and computer-based game play session. Interactions such as; which types of activities have been played, average interactions per minute, and activity usage history will be made available to the facilitator via graphical representations. By analyzing this data, the facilitator and designer, will be able to make gauge weather a learner is interested in an activity, is having difficulty locating an activity, or continually drops off a specific activity.

Formative Educational Evaluation

Embedded Assessments: Both the toy and the game will have embedded assessments. These assessments take the form of meaningful questioning that is activated during game play. For example, each time the EEMIO toy states a new emotional crisis, he follows up with “How do you think I feel?” The learner is then instructed to turn EEMIO to the respective side that correlates to what the learner believes to be EEMIO’s emotion, based on the description of the event.

Observational Assessments: EEMIO is intended to be used in the presence of a facilitator, preferably a social worker or counselor. By observing the child’s interactions with EEMIO, the facilitator will gain information about the child’s emotional state, interaction methods, coping mechanisms and family situation. Children often feel less intimidated by a toy or inanimate object than by an adult, especially when it comes to discussing emotions and other personal topics.

referances

Britez, Loren. Personal INTERVIEW. 5 November 2009.

Bruner, J. (1990), Acts of meaning, Cambridge: Harvard University Press,

Crawford, C. (2003). Chris Crawford on game design. Indianapolis, IN: New Riders Publishing.

Dickey, Michele (2005). Engaging By Design: How Engagement Strategies in Popular Computer and Video Games Can Inform Instructional Design. ETR&D, Vol. 53, No. 2, 2005, pp. 67–83

Driscoll, M. (2005). Psychology of Learning for Instruction (3rd ed.). Boston, MA: Allyn and Bacon. (pp. 77-91)

Irwin, Mary Jane, (2009) Unlocking Achievements: Rewarding Skill With Player Incentives. Gamasutra. Retrieved from http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/3976/unlocking_achievements_rewarding_.php

Jonassen, David H., Hernandez-Serrano, Julian (2002) Case-based reasoning and instructional design: Using Stories to Support Problem Solving. Educational
Technology, Research and Development. Research Library Vol 50, No 2.

Lidwell, W., Holden, K., Butler, J. (2003 Universal Principles of Design. Rockport Publishers.

Mayer, R.E. (Ed.) (2005). Cambridge Handbook of Multimedia Learning. New York: Cambridge.

Polkinghorne, D. (1988). Narrative knowing and the human sciences. Albany: State University of New York Press.

Schank, R.C., Fano, A., Bell, B., & Jona, M. (1993). The design of goal-based scenarios. The Joumal of the Learning Sciences, 3(4), 305-346.

Tidwell, Jennifer (2005) Designing Interfaces. O’Reilly Media

Vygotsky, L.S. (1978). Mind in Society. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.