clickED Lab Usability Study 26 January 2016

Prototype Changes Connected Devices - Initial Hack Enabled backend with Parse Conflict of languages (Swift/Obj-C) prevented functional Lookback integration In preparation for testing, we realized that it would not work for a student to “ask” a question if that was just going to be stored on its device locally. After all, then nobody else in the room would see the question that the student asked. So we connected the apps together with a backend using a framework called “Parse”. This way, if a single student asked a question, it would then appear on the teacher’s device. You can say this was good, because we were able to have actual communication between students and teachers in our simulation. For downsides, you can say that we did not have time to implement caching. This meant that even though we could communicate between student and teacher, the interaction was sub-optimal, because the teacher’s device would take a long time to load. Additional downsides: we only had one account for teacher and student. This led to multiple downsides: ​*anybody*​ with the app could view everything from the teacher’s perspective. Additionally, all of the students could see the questions that the other students were asking, which is exactly what our app is supposed to prevent. Finally, we did not have Lookback implemented, so we could not track user’s interactions in real time.

Participants Christina Foust - 8th Grade teacher at Summit K2 in El Cerrito Diverse classroom of around 25 students Gordon was friend’s with Ms. Foust We spoke as part of a college mentor program during Community Group

Tasks Students ask questions Teacher reads the room Teacher reviews unresolved questions after class

Apparatus Students and teacher downloaded app through Testflight Test took place in classroom during Community Group period

Procedure Q & A with the class Students used app in groups of five Teacher acted as a moderator using the app to pick the questions Teacher reviewed the questions asked after class

Test Measures Viability in a classroom setting Time to complete task Distraction level for both students and teachers

Results - Student Students understood usage of class code to enroll in class Under 15 seconds from opening the app to asking their questions UI to resolve questions was not intuitive

Results - Teacher Confused about how to start receiving questions Questions loaded slowly Expected to be able to mark questions as answered

Feedback - Student ~75% class wanted to see other student’s questions ~90% of class wanted to attach pictures to questions ~90% of class said they wanted the app for their class

Feedback - Teacher Color of question could be based on urgency Ability to organize list of questions

Discussion - UI Remove “Questions I’ve Asked” Allow students to see other students’ questions

Discussion - UI Remove resolve button and add it as a top right option or a swipe right to resolve better test if students find the swipe to resolve question obvious

Discussion - UI Better way for teacher to organize questions Alert teacher that questions are incoming Remove or move “Refresh” button

Discussion - Study Improvements Have observers sit with students Have students ask questions based on curriculum Individual student log-ins

Summary Tested app in 8th grade classroom Students and teacher suggested good ideas we had not considered Confired classroom viability