A Framework of the Training Module for Untrained Observers in Usability Evaluation Motivated by COVID-19: Enhancing the Validity of Usability Evaluation for Children’s Educational Games

The usability evaluation of educational games is an important task, especially for children. By applying Jakob Nielsen’s ten heuristics, most of the HCI designs can be evaluated, but when educational games are involved, where the user being observed is a child between the ages of six and eight, many...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inAdvances in human-computer interaction Vol. 2022; pp. 1 - 11
Main Authors Alshar’e, Marwan, Albadi, Ali, Mustafa, Malik, Tahir, Noman, Al Amri, Marya
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published New York Hindawi 09.03.2022
John Wiley & Sons, Inc
Hindawi Limited
Subjects
Children
COVID-19
Design
Distance learning
Education
Efficiency
Evaluation
Games
Heuristic
Human-computer interaction
Learning management systems
Modules
Observers
Software
Training
Usability testing
User interface
User satisfaction
Websites
United Kingdom
Oman
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Summary:The usability evaluation of educational games is an important task, especially for children. By applying Jakob Nielsen’s ten heuristics, most of the HCI designs can be evaluated, but when educational games are involved, where the user being observed is a child between the ages of six and eight, many questions arise. Is the observer trained well enough to observe the child’s reactions to the game with regard to its memorability, learnability, ease of use, and enjoyment? Will it be necessary for the observer to have a training session exploring the game before evaluating a child? Our research suggests that a training module designed to train an untrained facilitator (observer) in how to evaluate four usability dimensions (learnability, memorability, ease of use, and enjoyment) would be very useful. The usability evaluation data was collected by observing users playing generic educational games, using the Mann–Whitney U test, which was conducted by two groups of observers, one trained and one untrained. This was then reviewed, and a distinct difference was found between the results of evaluations in the two groups, thus validating the importance of training for an observer.
ISSN:1687-5893
1687-5907
DOI:10.1155/2022/7527457