Little Hands, Foul Moods, and Runny Noses

The Game Developer's Conference was last week in San Francisco and I was lucky enough to attend a few sessions about game design. My favorite one was about "Researching Games with Kids". The speaker was Carla Engelbrecht (Teachers College, Columbia University) and she was really lively and wonderful. She showed this hilarious video to start with...

She said that, as game designers, we think we know what kids will like but we don't always get it right. Our "inner child" may still be there but there's NO WAY for us to still be in touch with everything that kids like, hence the need for research.

So how do you do research? Besides getting kids in the room and actually testing with them, there are a lot of other resources to help you figure out what kids will like at what age:

academia, conferences, online Googling

Google Scholar ("cited by" links very useful)

the NY Public Library or other library you have access to

IDC-- Interaction Design for Children conference

CHI-Kids discussion list

Center for Children and Technology

Go to YouTube and search "kids using Wii" for example

Child Development 101 for the Developers of Interactive Media (Wolock, Orr & Buckleitner)

PBS Parents Child Development tracker

Here are a few interface design issues she pointed out:
-point and click is easier for kids than drag and drop -- especially kids under 6
-a trackball is easier for kids because it doesn't move as much as a mouse

Developmental issues:
-kids under 5 often recall isolated events rather than full plot
-kids understand big picture of plot only by age 9-10
-kids can't tell that the amount of water in a short glass is the same as one in a tall glass
-be careful of cognitive leaps you take for granted but kids haven't learned yet

Testing issues:
-setup needs to accommodate kids' small size: chair should be high enough and screen low enough that they don't have to strain to look up or they will focus on the bottom of the screen!
-don't have any fire alarms in the room (!)
-kids get bored, start to give wrong answers-- make sure you account for short attention spans

I hope this will be useful for anyone working on interactive media for kids, I certainly enjoyed her talk and will be keeping an eye out for her work.

Where 2.0: Location, Location, Location

tomorrow the 30th of May is the last day to attend the Where conference in San Jose!

"It is an unconference where the attendees drive the content of the sessions the day of instead of having a prescribed schedule and set of content. Therefore, the event is what you make of it, and is only as fun as the people who attend."

that's the description from the website (oh i mean wiki) about it. Can you tell it's happening on the West Coast?

still. Maybe you should go just to meet Steven Johnson.

http://conferences.oreillynet.com/where2007/