IP1: Usability

1. Usability does not mean that everyone and anyone can use the system, instead it means that it is customized for maximum usage by the target user group. The design process is user-centered and the highly iterative, requiring communication throughout development between users and the parties involved in the design process (Issa & Isaias, 2015). Observation is a key part of the designers’ process to configure the system to the users’ immediate and future needs. All user input is valuable because interactions do not stop with production because the system is designed to interact with the user so the system can learn and make customization suggestions for a better quality experience. Quality of experience is measured by whether the system fits the environmental and organizational needs of the users and can be used efficiently and safely (Issa & Isaias, 2015).

 

2. From an elementary school perspective, educational usability criteria should address the following questions: Is it easy to customize and switch between different age/user groups? Does it have different levels/types of motivation and gamification functions that can be customized for different age groups. Does it have different modes of communication? Can it measure academic progress and give alerts for students at-risk?

Elementary school often includes K-6 students, so if families have multiple children, this is the school period where siblings will attend at the same time and share devices. The app would also have to be accessible to parents and teachers. For the same educational apps to be used throughout grade levels, the technology would have to have different difficulty and motivation modes that grow with the child. There should be different modes of communication to accommodate emerging readers and people who prefer verbal communication. Student progress needs to be measured so teachers or the technology can provide differentiation and interventions when necessary.

3. Woolgar (1990) described that company interactions were framed within outsider/insider terminology. This is an example of how companies (insiders) configure tools from their perspective, thus requiring users to adjust to the tool rather than configure the tool to their own preferences. Of interest is how the goals for each team/department differed. For example, the Marketing team’s goal is to create interest in the product, so they wanted to attract a large group of prospective buyers. To make the tool appeal to a vast range of user groups the tools had to be configured for a large demographic group, which could lead to grouping 5-year-old users with adult users.

Woolgar (1990) states that no matter the intention and despite options for users to configure tools, designers are ultimately configuring their users to their product because the designers are creating a tool that will be used for a certain purpose and they expect their users to use the tool in a specific way. As an educator, this shows how our choices affect our students’ thought processes. The content we choose, the situation we present it in and the learning tasks we engage our students in, all configure how they (at least) view the next portion of their learning journey until the next teacher has a chance to tinker with the students’ configuration specifics.

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