December 5, 2018
Data-In/Data-Out Team: Usability Testing with Students at Garfield High School
Blog post written by Yao Wang, Maya Cakmak, Anthea Bartlett & Alli Hishikawa
The Data-In/Data-Out Team is spending this quarter looking at how EMAR can capture momentary stress data from teens (data-in) and display that data in a meaningful and engaging way (data-out).
Ideation and sketching
Before creating our prototype, we brainstormed how EMAR would interact with teens. We created several storyboards that reflect the general interaction:
Sketch of how EMAR captures momentary stress data
Two versions of EMAR asking teens to share their stressors
Design session
After ideation, our team built a user flow chart and identified EMAR’s different states during the session, determined by how the user responds to EMAR’s questions. Based on the user flow chart, we created prototypes using soft textured boxes and tablets showing EMAR’s face and belly.
User flow chart of EMAR during a data-in/data-out session
Prototype of EMAR’s face and belly screens
Testing with teens at Garfield High School
At Garfield High School, we tested our prototype and let teens interact with EMAR. Through this field testing we hoped to gain answers to the following questions:
- What would teens like EMAR to ask them about their stress?
- How much would teens like to tell EMAR about their stress?
- Will showing teens’ overall stress data from the community as data-out help teens de-stress?
Teens interact with EMAR prototype
Findings from the field
Visiting Garfield High School helped our team gain insight on teens’ opinions about EMAR and how they would like to share their stress with EMAR. Teens at Garfield HIgh School enjoyed interacting with EMAR and thought their interaction helped them to become better aware of their stress and how they can address it.
An important finding for our team was that most teens preferred sharing their stress with EMAR privately and confidentially, which will require our design to address the need for privacy while creating a safe space for teens. Additionally, we found that showing teens’ stress data from the community as a visual output helped teens decrease their stress when they found they were not alone in their feelings. However, some teens felt that if their stress level was higher than other teens, or their energy and mood level were lower than other teens, this might make them feel more isolated. In the future we will need to redesign the visual output with these suggestions from teens in mind.
We are looking forward to sharing the next steps in our journey with you!
