User Testing Feedback: Parent and Child Interface
After conducting user tests, we obtained further insights on the needs of our target users. Notable responses are included in this page and our team has improved the design according to the feedback.
From the results, it can be seen that all parents tested deemed this function necessary and the majority felt it was a way for them to help their child.
Parents mostly felt this function was necessary, however majority of parents thought it would be better for their child to set it themselves. In response to this, our team decided that for the next iteration of the prototype we would allow the child to set a time reward, which the parent had to approve. This way, the child has an opportunity to learn how to responsibly set a reward for themselves and parents can at the same time monitor to ensure they are on the right track.
Our team was originally on the fence regarding whether this functionality should be implemented or not. However from the feedback gathered, the functionality was kept for the next iteration of the prototype.
The feedback for this was odd, since the team had expected users to want to view only apps that exceeded 10% since that would indicate those were the problematic apps. Unfortunately there isn't enough data to determine why parents preferred to see the top 10 rather than only those that exceeded 10% of total usage time. The team eventually decided to display the top 10 apps.
The team was initially undecided on whether the parent or the child should have this power; from the survey conducted, it is clear that majority of parents believe they should have this power. The team decided to keep this ability within the parent interface for the next iteration.
There was quite an even spread of kids who felt there was no trust, and kids who felt their parents trusted them, however the majority of them understood that their parents weren't doing this to control them. Rather, it was to help and ensure they were doing the right thing. There were a few responses that indicated they felt it was irrelevant and a waste of time but the team decided to keep this functionality in the next iteration of the prototype.
An overwhelming percentage of responses indicated they felt their parents did not trust them, which was the opposite of the team's goals for this app. This was an unexpected insight since the kids were comfortable with parents approving their tasks but were so apprehensive when it came to rewards. From this feedback, the team decided to remove the functionality and instead allow kids to set their own rewards, and have parents approve the rewards together with the tasks.
Certain design components in the low fidelity prototype made navigation very confusing and the team has since improved on this aspect.
The team was undecided on where to place the Achievements button such that it was intuitive but also made sense. We had initially placed it on the Task page however users indicated that they had expected it to be on the Leaderboard or on its own page instead.
The two images above reaffirms the poor design and placement of the Achievements button. The team has since moved it to a more logical and clear position on the Data Usage page.
Based on feedback from surveys, it was also clear that the Leaderboard had little to no effect on users. This was unexpected, research had shown that including a Leaderboard could trigger the competitive side in kids and hence drive them to perform better. It was expected to motivate them, but instead kids indicated they didn't feel more motivated nor more accomplished than usual. In the next iteration of the prototype the team removed the Leaderboard page entirely and replaced it instead with an overview page that displayed a user's data usage. From research, users who use their mobile devices excessively often have no self-awareness and do not know how much time they spend on their phones. Existing apps that are similar often incorporate an overview or a chart that shows a user their usage patterns. This display of information often opens a user's eyes to their habits and often kickstart their progress in reducing their usage.