Interactive Kiosk User Testing

Short walkthrough of kiosk to show scrolling feature

For this project, I am creating an interactive kiosk that would be a companion of an exhibit in the St. Louis Science Center. The subject I chose was math, specifically shapes and how they work together. The target audience is younger kids (about 4 and up) and the premise of the kiosk is to teach them about shapes and how they can be used to make various pictures. An important thing I need to do in this journey is conduct user testing which is asking real people to test out my kiosk and tell me about it. I ask them questions as they explore and write down my findings based on feedback.

User 1: Tracey, female, student

1. When asked where she would start, she started dragging and dropping into the shape that was already pulled up, which was the flower.
2. She observed that the shape would snap into place when it was dragged to the correct spot. Said it would go back to its original spot if it was dragged to the incorrect spot.
3. When she completed the picture, she hit the reset button and saw that it all went back to the start again.
4. I gave her other instances for using the reset button and she tried them out and said they were successful.
5. When asked about navigation from one picture to another, she said she would use the navigation bar but said it wasn’t too clear that there were more than three choices.
6. Overall, she said that she could see kids using this in the Science Center and that the features worked pretty well.
7. Suggested adding a help screen as the first thing you see as well as making the scroll-ability more noticeable.

User 2: Madeline, female, student

1. When asked where she would start, she looked at the other options in the navigation bar but decided to stick with what was already pulled up, which was the flower.
2. She observed that the shape would snap into place if correct or back to the start if incorrect. She would occasionally hover a selection over a spot to see if it would fit.
3. When complete she used the reset button to start over.
4. When asked about navigating she said she would use the navigation bar but thought it could be more noticeable.
5. Overall, she said she could see this at the Science Center. Suggested making the scrollbar more noticeable as well as adding a help button animation.

User 3: Josh and Alex (couple), male and female, students

1. When asked where they would start, they told me which colors they would start with and the order in which they would complete it. They assumed that they had to start with the shape that was pulled up first, a flower.
2. They observed that it would snap into place when correct and maybe change size to fit. If incorrect, it would snap back to its original spot.
3. When they completed it, they hit the reset button and then clicked on another picture
4. When asked about navigation, they said they would use the navigation bar on the left but said that it could be more obvious that it could be scrolled down.
5. Overall, they thought that it could be a real kiosk in the Science Center. They liked the design but would improve the offset of some of the shapes that weren’t working as well as make the scrollbar better.

User 4: Allison, female, student

1. When asked where she would start, she used the navigation bar to choose a picture and then told me what color she would start with on that picture.
2. She observed that she would drag and drop the shapes and they would snap into place when correct. If it was incorrect, it would bounce back to start.
3. Said that if she wanted to start over, she would hit reset but if she was done she would just hit another picture from the navigation bar.
4. When asked about navigation, she said you would use the navigation bar (as she had been doing) and said that it was easy to identify and scroll to other areas.
5. Overall, she said that she could see younger kids using the kiosk. She thought her young cousins would enjoy it. She suggested adding a help screen. She said that she had a fun time testing this out.

User 5: Tony, male, project manager

1. When asked where he would start, he chose a picture from the navigation bar and then completed the picture.
2. He said that the shapes would drop into place when correct and bounce back when incorrect. Observed that some of the shapes were not fitting into their spot correctly such as being the wrong size or offsetting a bit.
3. Said that when complete, he would hit the restart button or just choose a new picture.
4. When asked about navigating, he said he would use the navigation bar and said it was kind of hard to identify.
5. Overall, said that this would be good in the Science Center. Suggested fixing the snapping features that weren’t working. Said that the experience was okay, but it could have been better because of the various problems.

My Insights

1. I assumed people would want to choose a shape to start but a lot of them told me how they would fill in the shape when asked where to start.
2. People understood that there was a navigation bar but some of them couldn’t realize how it worked or said it took them a bit to figure it out.
3. People overall liked the idea and thought that it would be good for kids. They liked the design and colors stating it was “kid-friendly”.
4. People liked the reset button and how many different instances it could be used.
5. People sometimes had trouble dragging and dropping and sometimes elements were selected when dragged over and they didn’t like that.

Areas for Improvement/Re-design

1. I am going to add a help button that will be in the corner but will probably show up when they first open the kiosk. It will then be there for reference.
2. I am going to improve the navigation bar making it easier for people to tell it can be scrolled down.
3. I am going to fix some of the draggability problems such as some of them not working when in full screen (not scaling).
4. I am going to add more contrast to some of the colors that get a bit lost on the backgrounds (adding drop shadows).
5. I am going to ensure that certain screens (like the congrats or help) go away when clicked once instead of sometimes more than once.

Conclusion

Overall, this feedback was helpful and the experience was good. I was nervous going into this because it was hard to find people to test my kiosk but once I did, it was smooth sailing. All of the suggestions I received were helpful and will go into use. It was also helpful to see the kiosk in its true form so I could see how the design looked. User testing was a good experience and good practice for my future in this field.