PHASE 3

Test run - Evaluation

From October 2009 until the end of February 2010 we conducted the test run in which our two test groups from Morocco and Germany were involved. The children dealt with three themes: animals, (holy) party/celebration and family.
During the whole time there was a constant exchange between the nursery/school teachers (Aicha Slama, Frank Simmank)and coordinator of the project (Lena Seik) – via email, chat, phone calls and visitations.
This summary also exists as an extensive version but in German.

1.) Basic points

1.1. Technical Evaluation

Application:
In interviews both groups have noted that main parts of the application (log in, tools, drawing, back and save function) work without problems.
The German group remarked difficulties in regarding to handle the zoom in and out function and move function on the board as well.

Drawing:
Both groups dealt with their subjects (animals, parties, family) and drew together on one board.
Obviously the Moroccan drawings were objective and clear. In opposite to the German drawings – they were abstract, plane and scribbled. They seemed interested in trying functions like brush size and colors. Nevertheless these drawings were understandable because of the comments.

Screenshot Doodleboard about subject ANIMALS

Screenshot Doodleboard about PARTIES and CELEBRATION

Screenshot Doodleboard about subject FAMILY

Detail of FAMILY with comment to a picture by Hafsa: „These are my family members – mama, papa and my two little sisters.“

1.2. Communication through drawing

Supervision German group:
Children recognized drawings on the board. They understood by themselves or through explanations that those drawings were made by other children.
But children lost their interest very fast. It didn’t seem to be important.
Admittedly it happened that children noticed a picture (“mister with dog” – but in fact “slaughter with sheep”) and involved that content in their own drawings.
Children seemed to be more motivated to draw something, if there were comprehensible drawings on the board. It seemed reasonable to assume, that the children observed drawings not superficially.
But most of it all the German children were more interested to check the technical function of menus and pencils than create understandable pictures – they liked to doodle without any content. (in contrast to analog drawings on one paper – see the picture below)

Picture drew by German children – theme: FAMILY

Report of the Moroccan group:
Children have had fun with drawing on the application. It was easy for them. At the beginning of every theme they have got an impression by discussions about it.
Children knew about drawings by other children. The teacher referred that they asked about the style, why there were only scribbles and doodles and no pictures.
[Summary by Aicha Slama]

2.) Results and conclusions

The application with its functions is very useful for the first contact between
young children and the computer. Children in this age have fun to scribble
virtually, test functions and colors.
Since today it exists no self-contained communication between both groups. The main reason must be the young age of the children, how all the involved persons affirmed.
Children at the age from 3 to 5 years just start to develop an abstract imagination.
They are not able to transfer content from a picture by an unknown child from another culture yet. Another reason is the lack of competence or interest to draw graphical on this application (especially the German children).
These conditions conduce no inter-cultural communication between children, that is why we have to find new ways for continuing the project.

3.) Further development

3.1. Children

For developing a contact children need a basic understanding about the existence of another culture, of distance and of virtuality and internet.
For German members we suggest a starting age of 6 years and accordingly the structured situation of the primary school. In case of the Moroccan group the (french) elementary school structure seems practical.

3.2. New project structure

The project continues with two groups from Morocco and Germany – preferable with Institution Mohamed Benabdallah. We are in contact with German primary schools for a possible participation.
Two Groups of children use the non-verbal platform DOODLEBOARD for an inter-cultural exchange. At the beginning both groups introduce themselves through f.e. photographs, small films, skype-sessions and other possibilities.
When children have gained an impression of the other group they start with the main part of the project: the participants deal with questions that they develop by themselves. These questions are about childrens interests, what they want to know about each other (games, food, …). Children draw on the doodle page their answers.
This could be per month one question/theme.
Furthermore the answers are the starting point for the development of a data bank for content that children fill with their own subjects and themes. This data bank follows the model of wikipedia. A picture/answer can be linked to a post on the data bank where children comment their pictures with a small text of explanation – by themselves and/or with the help of the teacher.
Step by step a childrens data bank grows – from children and for children.
At the moment we are working on a tutorial for the project course.

3.3.) Current updates

Since april 2010 for the teachers it is possible to change the DOODLE page into a blank page by themselves – recommended after a simple agreement. For this it exists a tool called SHOUTBOX on the admin modus. It works like a chat box – very easy and always visible.
The Kindergarten Entdeckerland stays in the project in an inactive way. Children are able to work on the board. But they don’t participate on the current project.
We are in contact with Matthias Bruehl, director of an IT company in Leipzig, who is active in supporting schools and kindergartens in questions like hardware and software configuration, internet security and coaching for children and responsible adults.

State: Leipzig, April 2010

As you may recognized, we introduc our fabulous doodleboard helper: Beach the bear. He is our new star and as you might seen in our beta version, he shows you what to do next, offers you games, and sometimes talks. Just have a try.

in the future, we will regulary train Beach to give you some good advices.

Before testrun:

In september 2009 together with the a small group of kids from Kindergarten Entdeckerland we tested again how they get on hard- and software of the doodleboard. Thirteen kids were three to six years old.

After our observation and first evaluation we came to the following conclusion:

- All children by age of three to six years were drawing something, for example members of the familyor animals. All of them like coloring without objective execution. They seem impressed by lightful colors on the screen, deep tones and an easy color application. We asked them, which kind of drawing is easier - on paper or on doodleboard. They all say it is “more beautiful” to draw on the board.

- We noticed that children are very communicative while drawing on the doodleboard. They explain and chat a lot even if they only try color after color and fill the screen.

- Children those who would not join the first task of the test (drawing on a big sheet of paper together with the group) were thereby on the computer and drawn - also together with other kids on the doodleboard.

- Children those who under the age of four have more problems with handling hardware (pen tablet) and using virtual menus. Older kids could explain how to solve such problems.

- At the moment the communication and understanding aspect via drawing is not evident enough. we could observe that children notice drawing from other kids beside them. Some of them gone to destroy drawings of other children while filling the space with colors.

- Kids recognised their own profile image behind the smilies on drawings and were looking for.

Our consequences:

- The beta version starts with an animation now. It pictures a simplified image of the globe. It might be helpful for understanding the international settings. It should be only an introduction but no replacement for an explaination.

- It is possible to click on different points for loading small games. These applications help to train hand-eye-screen coordination and handling hardware.

- For the testrun of the international exchange we asked children by the age of four to six because of better handling hard- and software than smaller kids.

German kids started:

- 6th october three kids from four to six from Kindergarten Entdeckerland took the first step in direction Moroccan kids. The object was “animals”. Most of the drawings are areas of colors (see above). A couple of animals are also thereby.

IMPROVEMENT FEATURES BETAVERSION 3

- general design finish for the protoype in white and green
- zoom- and navigation elements became more easier and faster (direct zoom)
- realtime place reserving system, to see, where someone else draw something
- we included several “go back” mechanims, while drawing and login process
- comment function is more specified and direct via backend
- portrait drawing via backend is optimized

- true fullscreen mode on all browsers- comment design improved
- the explain bear is now available - he shows what to do on the doodleboard
- we rearanged the game / drawing relation - you can only play if you’ve drawn something

NEW SPECTATOR MODE AVAILABLE

- for all the adult to see what the kids are doing online!
- http://beta.doodleboard.org/flash/spectator_mode.html

SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS:

FlashPlayer 10 (latest version recommended)
Mozilla Firefox 2.0 and above

> Sorry. At the moment NO MACINTOSH SUPPORT!

Our results occur of of the three step evaluation of the childrens choice. We could build a medium choice of all the childrens choices, so we could find a fitting icon for each theme we want to use. See the results in the following visualisation.

Here are some examples of our first drawing session with the morrocan group. The most drawings were made immediately after the introduction.

DOUAE draw herself with a laptop - while she was using the graphics tablet that was connected to one of our laptops…

MALAK - also draw herself in a red dress, she likes. The “E” on the left side was part of a task.

CHADINE - draw a collection of several houses around the board.

MANAL - likes ships and the ocean, so she draw some boats and a house.

IMANE - did very well with the drawing of her house. even the sun is shining.

ADAM - draw some animals in the forest. they are going to somewhere.

1. Solutions for the first test version of Doodleboard
The conception of the Doodleboard interface system describes three different user levels. Children’s level concerns the drawing application, the photo commenting application and navigation. Input and savings can be seen by external visitors (adults). To realize an user friendly environment for all countries it is necessary for the teachers to administrate and comment the drawings of all their children, for a better international understanding.

1.1 Icon family
The international approach of the doodleboard platform demands a visual communication that relates to cross-cultural signs and meanings. In our research we figured out different iconographical stereotypes that support a high level of understanding. To specify this suggestion methodicly we decided to use an online questionary that adresses to the children.

Online questionary
After both project groups figured out different themes of interest our task is to find out the right iconographic symbol for the children to support the nonverbal communication. In this case it is necessary to offer a system that enables both groups to select and vote for an icon in combination to a special theme. This task is solved by an online questionary that collects all votes in a database to evaluate them for usage.

Evaluation tool
This online application was designed to offer a general view over the statistical evaluations from the online questionary. The results are split in three sections that show the line of the selection. This view offers a complex visualisation of children’s selection behaviour which shows a good advantage to find the right icon family.

1.2 Additional features: photo as comment
To realize an additional nonverbal communication layer beneath the drawings it is important to offer a simple comment system to the children. To find out the right way how this system might work we collected different nonverbal input possibilities, like sound and video and tested them with the children.

Photo comes first
We could fix the photo booth function as very easy to control and fun to play and work with. To offer a high compatibility with different computer hardware systems we decided to use the webcam as a photographic input device. This enables the children to additionally comment the drawings of the others, to build another communication layer or just to have fun with.

1.3 Simplicity as solution
The usage of a metaspace in the doodleboard application is an advanced demand for children of this age. But there are several indications, that this way of direct interaction is the best way to form a comfortable and progressive interaction platform, without static menus or interactive avatars.

Dynamic interface
It is very important to make sure, that the children are able to use the interface intuitively even without orders from adults. On the one hand, this task will be solved by an intelligent dynamic interaction structure of the application and on the other hand by a meaningful reduction of navigation, graphical and interaction elements. This progressive way of useability has to be tested in several behaviour researches. An important method by creating the user interface is to offer a very direct interaction logic by referring on realistic visualisations and object behaviours.
It needs to carry out test series with dynamic menus, buttons and tweens.

3.4 Identification
The virtual system needs a strong relation to the children’s all day life. A successful communication can only be sure if the children are able to identify with the system, its results and interactions.

Integration
To support a smart relation for the children to the system we want to offer doodleboard access cards for each registered child. This card holds instructions for the adults and also the individual symbol login combination – just to remember. Beside the help and support of the teachers and parents, it should be possible for each child to enter the system without help.

1. RESEARCH AND CONCEPTION
Résumé of the first test series with the German group (May) and the Morrocan group (June)
In relation to the development of an online interactive platform there is a strong need to proof several interaction and design aspect with research and useability studies. This working method offers one way to build interactive applications with the integration of user specific profiles, in this case the children themselves, to realize an intuitive and easy user access to the system.

1.1 PRECONDITIONS
Interviews and Research
Before starting the hard- and software testings we had a short talk with every kid about its precondition with regard to computer technology and internet. The children are between four and six years old. In Germany we talked to seven children, in Morocco to twelve children. All of them already know the computer. Above all the Moroccan kids name the parts of the computer like mouse, keyboard, sceen and tower. Except of one German all kids have one or more computers at home and already made something on it. All children already played games, some of them wrote on the computer. All of the Morrocan kids are able to start and shut down the computer by themselves. All of the German kids never did it by themselves and need help from other persons to start or shut down the computer. German kids play games like soccer, educational games, searching with a princess lost things at a garden, “Age of empire” and drawing games. The Moroccan children said that they play action games like “Spiderman”, “Batman”, shooter and motor racing and other games like domino, princess and kitchen games.
We asked all about their experiences with the internet. Some of the German kids did not know what it is. The others know it for its searching funktion. They were never online by themselves, always watch somebody was doing it.  All of the Moroccans know the internet. Some of them play games or chat with members of the family. They are doing it by themselves together with other persons.

1.2 GET IN TOUCH WITH THE DEVICES
How to introduce the right devices?
All children said that they worked only with mice before. To draw with a pencil on a graphic tablet was new for all. They showed a very trained eye-hand-screen coordination in different task situations.  The learning phase was less than 10 min. Even fast cursor positioning was available without watching the hands action itself.

Tablet size needs to relate to full screen
It is necessary to offer a true full screen application which supports a true full screen and also a full tablet availability. It is difficult for the children to understand the window appearance that comes with every operating system. There should be a technical solution for a client application auto run system in the future.

Pointer to follow
The pointer of the brush has got a strong meaning concerning orientation and navigation in the application. In different test series we offered just a 4px width circle with sharp borders which was on the edge of visibility and useablility, With the increase of size and colour we could receive much better results. The navigation menu concerns the same logic and should be handled with sensible care to receive a sensitive drawing and orientation tool.

Sound as possible
The integration of minimal sound modules are very helpful. The drawing action can be initiated by a clicking sound - so as navigation sounds for further modules and action can give an additional non-visual feedback of the users action. The collection of sounds has to be very sensitive because they might interrupt the work flow.

Graphics tablet
The central point to offer an optimized User Interface is to integrate the hardware devices into the interface development process. The usage of conventional graphic tablets, instead of mouses, as drawing input devices is a necessary step to offer the children a direct way of interaction. The intuitive usage of those devices needs to be tracked in a behaviour research. The aim of test is to show the ways, which children intuitively use those devices as a drawing device. Related on several hardware studies we keep the Bamboo One/Wacom as the most suitable hardware device for this requirement. It is easy to configure and use, has the best technical responses and fits to the economical brief.

1.3 DRAWING PROTOTYPE WITH DYNAMIC MENU
dynamic interface structures as the key to simplicity
This very complex behavioural test series with both of the project groups concerned the practical usage of the interface elements in combination whether with the mouse or the graphics tablet. The children’s task was to get familiar with the drawing tools just by using them. We avoided to introduce them at all. We offered several drawing tasks and also free drawing by using different colours and brush sizes.

Skills develop fast
We observed a very strong dekvelopment in the handling skills with the interface. Even children without computer experience were able to understand the context. Most of the children found it difficult at the beginning but became familiar after a few minutes. The handling of the interface has to be understand as a learning process - both intellectual and fine motoric.

Mouse vs. tablet
There were several cases of useabilty problems concerning the handling of the drawing board with children who already were experienced with computers - in fact with mouse handling. For them it was much more easier to use the mouse as drawing device.

Difficult fine motor skills
We observed some difficulties concerning fine motor skills of children with younger age. Navigation and pointing logic with the graphic tablet seems to be more difficult than mouse navigation. Also the click behaviour of the graphic tablet is difficult for younger children. The older children were able to navigate, point and click in all situations - even with very small interface elements. This difference of abilities and skills has to be reminded and solved. The integration of both input devices is necessary.

Résumé
Drawing on the computer is a different way to express thoughts for children than using a pen on paper in the beginning. At first it is a new way of action and reaction - for the most of the children it was fun just to draw lines or select colours without meaning. The change into the context of the children’s drawing subjects has to be observed for later evaluation.

After one week of research on the Doodleboard prototype with the morrocan group we could make several adavantages with the children, all 5/6 years old, and our protoype. With the great help of our partner teachers we could improve updates for the drawing menu, the login and the saving process.

In fact the system is made to be use by the children all alone. We could find a great success in useability and nonverbal understanding of the interface.

The technical improvements are very important with regard to offer a useable and fast access to the Doodleboard, even on computers with low bandwidth or power.

Setup for two versions

After several contextual observations we decided to offer two versions of the Doodleboard.

The version of Doodleboard “at home” offer serveral theme categories that children can make drawings to. It is more concerned that this version can be a practice, fun, sharing and communication place for the children.

Doodleboard “in school” is project and school related. Their will be working periods for all participating group to work on one large picture concerning one of the previous selected themes. This working process will be accompined by the teachers of each participating group with initiation, practicing and realisation lessons. The results of this group work will be available online and for large prints.

The exact definition of the two mode will be offered until the test run starts in the beginning of October 2009.
The basic version will be further exist as Doodleboard “at home”.

This is our research and testing group in Salé, Morocco. It was a very exciting time with all the children and teachers. Thanks a lot!

Our team at work. Every day we did some useability tests to approve that the children are comfortable with the system and the interface.

Teaching and learning how to use the hardware devices was a very exiciting and joyful activity for children, teachers and developers.

Here are some examples of our first drawing session with the morrocan group. The most drawings were made immediately after the introduction.

DOUAE draw herself with a laptop - while she was using the graphics tablet that was connected to one of our laptops…

MALAK - also draw herself in a red dress, she likes. The “E” on the left side was part of a task.

CHADINE - draw a collection of several houses around the board.

MANAL - likes ships and the ocean, so she draw some boats and a house.

IMANE - did very well with the drawing of her house. even the sun is shining.

ADAM - draw some animals in the forest. they are going to somewhere.