This document discusses the development of a children's gaming and learning app. It outlines personas for a child user, teacher, and parent. It then describes following an iterative prototyping process that involved defining requirements through online research and specifications, designing low and high fidelity prototypes, and usability testing. Key aspects included a user-centered design approach, interface design principles, and testing prototypes with users to gather feedback at various stages of the process. The overall goal was to create an intuitive app that satisfied users' needs and supported learning through gaming.

1. Software CA
Presentation
Alix Rhodes N00112116
Children’s Gaming and Learning App

2. Introduction:
• A learning application for children through gaming, to be
used as homework, class work, to help children struggling in
certain topics, or even for them to play at home.
• Users:
Child: Can play games, learn, do homework, view high
scores, take tests, play games with their parents or friends.
Teacher: Can use it to help individual children in their
class, create a lesson in it for the whole class, resource
learning, keeping up with each child’s progress, set homework
on it.
Parent: Can keep up to date with their child’s class work, view
their progress in each topic, see what they might need a little
more assistance in, join in and play games with their child or
speak to the teacher through a private mailing.

3. Persona:
• Child: John smith, 6 years old, Second class.
• Is having it difficulty when it comes to reading, falling
slightly behind the other children. John is aware the
other children can read better than him and so
whenever he’s asked to read out in class he starts to
stutter out of nerves.
• Teacher: Ms. Jennings.
• Began her career as a resource teacher, moved on to
taking second class full time as well as resource teaching
the other classes during certain periods and individuals.
Loves to engage children and teach them to love
learning.

4. Persona
• Parent: Sandra
• Loves to get as involved as possible in the children’s
school lives and keeping them very active after
school as well as on weekends. She’s always been
interested in education and would do anything to
help and spend more time with her children.

5. Software development
process: My approach
(Methodology)

6. Followed prototyping process method:
Iterative approach: My version (Methodology)
Evaluation
and testing
Users
•
Define app
• Define users
• Requirements
gathering online
• Requirements
gathering
specification
• Define
functionality
•Use case diagrams
•User scenarios/stories
•Questionnaires
•Sketches (Low fidelity
prototype)
•Interface design
•User centered design
•Usability testing
•User experience
•User acceptance testing
•User centered design
Requirements
gathering
Implementation
• Testing
• Prototype
• Maintenance

7. Development Process
(Methodology)
• Iterative as, you need to test the ideas with users at
all stages in the design process.
• Key elements of the design should emerge from the
requirements analysis – User centered design, user
stories and scenarios emerge.
• The need to define the users is very important as
Designers are not always typical users, also they’re
too expert and can fail to empathize with the
needs of first time users
• (Laurel, 1990).

8. User Centered Design
(Methodology)
• Software design is the portion of the development
process that is responsible for determining how the
program will achieve the user’s goals(Cooper, 1995).
• Focusing on: Needs of users (support their
goals), Limitations of end users, Preferences of end
users, Business objectives
• Importance: Satisfy the user with a more efficient and
user-friendly experience, Increase loyalty and return
visits, Establish a more relevant and valuable
website, Create websites that supports rather than
frustrates the user. (User acceptance testing &
compatibility with user experience – feedback –UCD
repeats: iterative process).

9. Requirements analysis:
• “How will the software be used? Who will use it? How
frequently? For how long? What feature are they
using? What is usually a source of frustration?”
Cooper, 1995).
• User Stories and scenarios were based on the online
and specification requirements gathering.
• Helping define the functional (To be able to
login/out, go forward&back, checks off sections are
you go through..ect.) and non-functional requirements
(Home button, stating the score after each
game, keeping the user up-to-date with what they’ve
done.)

11. Interface design
• Pressman’s Principles, User in control
(accessing, back & forward), Keep interface
consistent, Demands on memory.
• Nielsen (1994). Heuristic approach: Minimalistic, real
world, Recover from error.
• Understand users goals. Properly labelled
interface, intuitive icons, Jones (2011). USD. Users
scan a page not read – Stand out, instant
gratification.
• Strive for simplicity. No manual needed.
• Responsiveness, targets, (Navigation and user
input). First impressions. Stark (2012).

12. Interface Design

13. Testing
• Questionnaire
• Low fidelity prototype (sketches) – Feedback
• Prototype draft, Usability testing & user experience testing:
“Would you be able to navigate this without my help? Are
the icons intuitive? What is your general opinion on the
overall look and feel of this scenario? , Did this app follow
the standard style of other apps, therefore making it easy
for first time users of this app but not apps in general?” –
Feedback
• Finished prototype, expanding the already incorporated
user centered design based on feedback.
• Robertson (1994) suggests testing procedures for
educational software to create a quasi-user-centered
design approach for educational software development.
Multidisciplinary design teams, each with individual
needs, and including children on testing teams.

14. Testing: SKETCHES

15. Testing: BEFORE &
AFTER

16. Testing: BEFORE &
AFTER

17. Testing: BEFORE &
AFTER

18. Testing: BEFORE &
AFTER

19. Testing: BEFORE &
AFTER

20. Axure demo
• PLAY CAMTASIA VIDEO.

21. Refernces
• Cooper, A. (1995). About face: The essentials of user
interface design. CA: IDG Books, Worldwide, Inc.
• Laurel, B. (1990). The art of human-computer interface
design. (pp. 8-10). USA: Apple Computer, Inc.
• Robertson, J. W. (1994). Usability and children's software:
A user-centered design methodology. Journal of
Computing in Childhood Education, 5(3-4), 257-271.
• http://mobile.smashingmagazine.com/2011/05/02/auser-centered-approach-to-mobile-design/
• http://www.usability.gov/basics/ucd/index.html
• Jones (2011) http://designfestival.com/5-principles-ofuser-centered-interface-design/
• Stark (2012) http://www.netmagazine.com/features/10principles-mobile-interface-design