This paper describes a Science-Technology-Engineering-Mathematics (STEM) outreach workshop conducted with post-secondary students diagnosed with learning differences including Learning Disabilities (LD), Attention Deficit / Hyperactivity Disorders (AD/HD), and/or Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD). In this workshop, students were actively involved in participatory design exercises such as data gathering, identifying accessible design requirements, and evaluating mobile applications and games targeted for diverse users. This hands-on experience broadened students’ understanding of STEM areas, provided them with an opportunity to see themselves as computer scientists, and demonstrated how they might succeed in computing careers, especially in human-centered computing and interface design. Lessons learned from the workshop also offer useful insight on conducting participatory design with this unique population.

We are very excited to present the results of this ongoing collaboration at ASSETS in Boulder, CO, in October! We will post the final camera-ready 2-page paper and the final poster we develop when they are available.

  

Rehab Dashboard app screenshot of main menu

Focus of Participatory Design Sessions

I reviewed Rehad Dashboard with two groups of student participants, each group being 3-4 students. Both groups had sat together during the morning lectures at this event, and seemed very different from each other. The first group had been vocal and volunteered lots of opinions, and the second had been very quiet. Interestingly, in the focus sessions both groups really “delivered”, and came up lots of ideas, readily iterating and developing their own opinions and suggestions.

Feedback screen in Rehab Dashboard, with exercise count

The group quickly zeroed in on the need for instruction in the app (this content was omitted on purpose by the creators for the prototype). They group mentioned that the exercise readouts, which they liked, could use Help pages that would explain their meaning. The group also suggested instructional video on how to perform the exercises. They also brought up the need for different types of instruction for the disabled, such as voice for the blind. The app gives a slight vibratory “buzz” when each exercise is completed. The group liked that feedback, but suggested an audible count, or visible screen flash, could be useful as well.

The first group noted that cheating on the app seemed a little too easy, which brought up the question of motivation. On this subject the group had a wealth of ideas. Scores could be posted to boards, amplifying competition. Rewards for performance were discussed, as well as raffles based on membership and achievement. The group related all of this to parallels in their own gaming group membership and social media behavior. They also had suggestions based on their own interests for better performance measures. One participant had used Brain Age, a memory and learning application, and liked the way the software gave back graphs on improvement, allowing the user to see their progress in a visual way. They also brought up the need for reminders and scheduling help, to keep users on track with their exercise routines.

The first group also was enthusiastic about adapting the app to martial arts or boxing exercises. When queried about whether that use could damage the phone they quickly developed several ideas for how the phone could be protected. First they sketched some wearable wrist, leg, and arm bands that could hold the device. Secondly, one participant in particular was very interested in the concept of building a second device that would be wirelessly connected to the phone. The second device as described would also measure acceleration and angle, like the phone, while being more shock-resistant and exercise-friendly than a smartphone. The group also wanted to extend the use of the app to hiking and biking (which makes sense given the scenic locale). They described GPS enabled route and time measures the app could support, and drew some sketches of a mounting position for the smartphone on bike handlebars.

The second group had similar ideas to start with, mentioning wrist and arm bands. However, they had no shortage of their own ideas. They mentioned using the web connectivity of the smartphone as the basis for connecting the app to weight loss and exercise websites that help users count calories and maintain their diet.  The second group also elaborated on the question of effective instruction. They had plenty of opinions on whether instructional video or images is more useful in general, and specifically for exercise training.

The second group also described Facebook-based feedback, and developed a really interesting discussion of privacy and user intent when posting information. They talked about being able to opt in to meet-up’s with other exercisers geographically.

They also had an interesting take on motivation. Given their own gaming experiences, they pointed out that leaderboards are, for them, often not that big of a motivator unless they are actually in contention for a top spot. Breaking up performance into leagues, was deemed useful to enhancing the sense of competition and achievement. Similarly, they related how the most challenging parts of games, while rewarding to beat, were things that they would never revisit. The payoffs for those tough patches in a game, whether an in-game cinematic or some visceral visual feedback (such as “headshots” in fighting games), would need to apply to a good exercise program app as well, they stated. This group also had a really funny discussion about motivational speakers. They suggested the app could offer encouragement or count reps via celebrity voices. The celebrities the group came up with as worthy voices included Arnold Schwarzenegger, 50Cent, Richard Simmons, and Mike Tyson.

When asked, the second group mentioned that they hadn’t had a lot of experience with actual exercise gaming on platforms such as the Wii or Xbox Kinect. They found those to be a little expensive for their college budgets, and mentioned feeling a little weird gaming while standing up with a group of friends.

Lessons Learned in Conducting the PD Sessions

One clear takeaway was how useful gaming is a participatory design focus for groups in this college age range. Every participant had strong feelings based on their preferences and experiences, and those were the basis more lots of really impressive new ideas. Whenever a line of discussion seemed to “dry up,” a parallel to similar gaming experience would often evoke a flood of new ideas on the topic, and all group members would have an opinion.

In terms of working with participants with cognitive differences, I noted that working with groups that knew each other well was a real benefit. Often they were very familiar with each other, and readily assisted in focusing and developing explanations and ideas. This made focusing the wide-ranging discussions easier in several cases.

The small group I worked with both really impressed me with the how quickly they tried and improved such a wide range of ideas. They had a real variety of experiences and were very articulate about what they liked in software and entertainment media, and how that could apply to improving Rehab Dashboard.

Focus of Design Sessions

The workshop was broken into two design sessions.  The focus of our design sessions with this application was making it more useful, easier to use, and more like a game.  The first session involved 3 students.  After giving a basic introduction to the purpose of the application, we allowed the students to freely explore the application.  After using it they immediately had suggestions for making it better.  At first they began to talk amongst themselves about whether the application would be useful for different reasons.  The conversation from that point was dictated primarily by their ideas and desires to improve the application rather than my suggestions.  One student asked questions about the applications intended uses and suggested several additional situations where the application could be used.  We then discussed ways to motivate people to use this application.  They suggested several games that could be played to assist a person with remembering the procedures and they drew examples of how those games would work, along with other personal artwork.

The second group of students was a little less enthusiastic about the application at first.  I had to ask a lot of questions and ask people directly to draw things they were thinking of so that we could all discuss their ideas.  We would discuss things like the way instructions were presented to the user and then each of the students would draw a solution to the problems we discussed and we would pick and choose which designs would work together and why or why not.  One member of this group insisted on writing actual Java code rather than drawing interface designs.  It was clear that all three of the students in the second group had different ways of thinking about the problem as well as different levels of concern regarding the level of detail in their solutions.

Lessons Learned: Contributions to the Design

All the students in both sessions were very willing to provide feedback and ideas.  They were especially interested in talking about whether or not it could be useful in their own situations or in general with other students like them.  They suggested numerous situations where the application could be used.  The original intention of the application was for the user to practice using the application to learn the procedure and perform the actual task in real life without the use of the application.  The students believed that the application would be useful for that purpose but also just as useful as a step-by-step tool for use during the task.

In the first design session we worked through and discussed ways to motivate people to use this application.  They suggested some type of rewards system and the ability to track your own progress through graphs or just score reports.  We discussed sharing performance information with friends, or just other users, but came to the conclusion that it would not be useful due to the customized nature of the user experience.  Instead the students designed other types of quizzes/games for testing how well a user remembered a procedure.  They suggested a game similar to the classic card game of memory matching, where the steps would be shown as cards then hidden and scrambled and the user would have to select a card to identify it then put the cards in order.  They also suggested a multiple choice quiz where questions would be asked such as “Which step is next?” and the user would be given up to four options to choose from (either pictures or written descriptions).

In the second design session, the students began with the changes suggested by the students in the first group.  In this session the students pointed out that it could be a little difficult to display procedures that had more than six steps or that contained sub-steps.  Together we came up with different ways to use colors to identify and convey the navigation and “location” of the user in the procedure.  We also worked together to try to figure out how we could track and display performance over time for the user of the application.  We decided that having line graphs with options that could be selected and deselected to customize what the user sees.  Inherent to this display we also discussed what things could be tracked that could be used to quantify performance.  We came up with 4 main things:

1. How many times a quiz was completed.
2. How many attempts it took to get the sequence correct.
3. How many times it was completed correctly.
4. How long it takes to complete the sequencing quiz.

The final thing discussed during the session was the name of the application.  It was determined that, in order to get people to even consider choosing this application or to remember it, we would need a catchy name.  After each student suggested a name we discussed the alternatives and eventually came up with the name, “ProcedurePal”.

This screen is used to actually view the steps in a process along with an audio description of the step

This screen is for the user to attempt to put the steps in order. The user selects the image associated with each step and when they choose them they are added to the display area in place of the numbers.

Lessons Learned: Conducting the Design Sessions

This was my first time conducting a participatory design session.  It was also my first time working with students with learning differences.  My first observation from the design sessions was how willing everyone was to offer up opinions of the application.  Also, the feedback I received seemed very honest. The students were very willing to offer insight into how the application could or could not help them personally.  For those that did not think the application would be useful for them, personally, I tried to encourage them to think of ways that the application could be modified so that it would be useful.  This really got the discussion going.  At some points during the session the students began arguing amongst themselves but in most cases were easily re-focused.  The use of the tangible materials (paper, markers, whiteboard, etc.) seemed to help keep everyone focused on the design tasks rather than talking about other things.  Some students did draw “doodles” using the markers but they were still actively engaged in the discussions and were still able to contribute good ideas.  At certain points during the sessions, such as when someone was explaining their ideas for a solution, the other members of the group might stop listening, watch something else going on in the room, or play around with the materials. One technique I found helpful for this was asking the others their opinions or having everyone focus on the same sheet of paper or drawing on the whiteboard to encourage discussion of the designs.  Overall, it was a very enlightening experience and it was fun.

I have worked with children and school groups before, teaching archaeology, paleontology, and geology at a science camp in the John Day Fossil Beds National Monument (The Park’s website at http://www.nps.gov/joda/index.htmin the high desert of Oregon. Many of the groups included high school seniors, young adults just a step away from college. But the students at Landmark College (many of whom were freshman and only in their first semester) were far more engaged and interested in the topic of software interface redesign than I could muster from the students in these school groups who were standing in one of the largest, and most ecologically diverse fossil beds in the world, full of breathtaking views!

Group prototyping session

Over the years I have been fortunate to run, or help run, usability tests on many different topics. My work with all the different participants I had on these traditional usability studies, in some ways helped prepare me for this and in other ways definitely did not. I’m grateful for all of the practice I’ve had at attempting to draw out further information by having the participant ‘think aloud’. For a project like this though, iterative application design with a special needs group is nothing like these traditional usability studies. My group was reworking a scheduling app, that would help remind students to do things like write a paper, take medicine, go to class, and so on. The first group of students I worked with were at first very quiet, and I found that I needed to really draw them out with questions to lead them into discussion. Once they got going though, a great deal of their ideas were extremely good, and shaped a good application into one far better. The second iteration of application design with these designers was quite different from the first, mainly because this group was extremely gregarious. In the first group the focus was almost on trying to get all of the students to talk and voice ideas, in the second it was more of an attempt to hear one voice over the rest. But this passion and intensity, when tempered and focused (towards the application and away from drawing monsters), produced ideas that were unique and greatly strengthened the functionality and features of the app in a completely different way from the first group.

I also found it interesting how many of the students at Landmark College were serious gamers, clearly having whiled away many an hour playing LAN games of Starcraft and many other games. Yet just as fascinating, few of the students had played or heard of many of the highest rated and popular games of the past few years. In that respect it appeared that the gaming community was somewhat insular, and most of the students seemed used to playing games that were ‘tried and true’. All in all I can say that this was an extremely rewarding trip for me: learning new ways of working with users, better understanding the needs of this specialized group, and was great practice in both having the user think aloud, and working to provide a structure for participants who may not be quite as focused otherwise. This is definitely a trip I will remember for a long time.

Med Quiz app prototype sketches

Other Med Quiz app prototype sketches

Both groups were very interested and engaged in the process. The first group focused on testing the original prototype and brainstorming possible features that could be added. During this session, paper, sticky notes, and markers were used to create paper prototypes and develop ideas. The session ended with a paper prototype including the features the group considered most important to the redesign. The second session also looked at the original prototype, but focused on the paper prototype developed in the first session. The second group brainstormed ways to refine or expand the prototype, as well as considering how the user might move through the game.

The paper prototype during the session, with sticky notes used for brainstorming ideas.

Working with the students at Landmark was very rewarding. They were clearly interested in the idea of participatory design and were very comfortable expressing their ideas. While many of them did not have previous experience with this kind of focus group, the paper prototyping was easy to pick up and in my opinion a successful technique.

Med Quiz screenshot - Main menu

Med Quiz screenshot - Quiz page