Pixel Push [Stem Accessibility]
Midterm Evaluation: Pixel Press
Documentation
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Field Notes
Early Morning Test:
- Pre-user testing enjoyment of bright lights emitted by project.
- Brief initial excitement at the action of pushing.
- Quickly bored and frustrated by limiation of color.
- Previous understanding of screen/pixel loading
- More interested in filling in grid squares on paper surrounding toy with color pencils (less limiting space).
Note: In between tests we modified the context of the toy, adding instructional graphics and coloring in pixel art around the toy on the board
Afternoon Test:
- Understood how to begin interaction/play with toy.
- Interested in playing with project freely (changing all squares to one color).
- Showed understanding of pixel positioning through combination of play and discussion.
Other tests:
- A few adults expressed interest in playing with a similar toy at a much smaller scale in a sort of fidget toy style.
Evaluation
The combination of observations from the two user tests leads me to believe that while the physical apparance of the toy itself is attention grabbing, we could serve to improve it’s context in an educational space. Testers seemed to enjoy interacting with the toy for some time in a playful or meditative way but the point we hoped to communicate of indicating that each pixel has a specific place on a screen needs to be re-worked into the design of the toy and its contexts. In this context playful encounter with the toy was measured by engagement time, facial expression (smiles, gaze, etc.) and verbal feedback given. When a child started talking about something else, we knew that they were no longer as interested i n engaging or playing with the toy. When a child shared confusion or frustration with the toy we got a clear message of how they felt. We were lucky to have such communicative and focused user testers in this first sharing of our project. I think going forward we can work on the design of our project in how it communicates pixel array and image loading concepts for a wider audience and test emore casual interactions with it to understand how the toy serves its purpose without verbal explaination from us when we can’t be there to discuss.