My Presentation at the CISSE Conference 2012

1. Pre-MEGa: A proposed framework for the
design and evaluation of Preschoolers’
Mobile Educational Games

2.  Positively affects attitude towards learning
 Multimedia vs. books & flashcards
 Interactive vs. non-interactive
 Random access & parallel processing
 Immediate Reward vs. long-term rewards
 Low level of threat with failture
 Challenge & competition  excitement
 Fantasy and stories  emotional experience
Why Digital Learning Games?

3.  Challenges
 Educational games which compete with “real” non-
educational games
 Keeping interest to repeat playing over a long time period
 Requires big audio library as they cannot read
 Testing with preschoolers
 Opportunities
 No complicated learning theories
 No complicated game strategies and scoring
 Not required to to master a large amount of learning
content, only some indirect learning
Designing Learning Games for
Preschoolers

4. Mobile Use by Preschoolers

5. SEEM

6. Dust or Magic’s CIMEI

7. Yogiplay’s Yogimeter

8. Common Sense Media Rating

9. The Preschoolers' Likeability Framework

10. Malone’s Heuristics

11. Prensky’s Digital Games-Based
Learning

12. Evaluating Children’s Interactive
Products

13.  The HECE Framework of Usability Heuristics for Child E-Learning
Applications
 The Enali Framework for Pedagogical Agents
 J.P.Hourcade’s chapter on Interaction design and children
 “Playability Heuristics for Mobile Games “
 “Heuristic evaluation for games: usability principles for video game design. “
 “Designing and testing mobile interfaces for children. “
 “Design Principles of Educational Virtual Worlds for Preschool Children”
 “A comparison of the mouse and touch screen for children's use of computers.
“
 “The role of usability research in designing children's computer products”
 “Conducting game user experience research with preschoolers.”
 “Games, motivation, and learning: A research and practice model.”
 “Gender differences in children's creative game play.”
 childrennow.org: The effects of interactive media on preschoolers' learning.
 Smashingmagazine.com: A Dad’s Plea To Developers Of iPad Apps For
Children
Other Research & Resources

14.  Screen Design
 Navigation & Control
 Ease of Use
 Responsiveness
 Game Design
 Learning Potential
 Instructions
 Feedback
 Difficulty Level
 Content Delivery &
Presentation
 Pedagogical Agent
 Customization
 Security
 Accessibility
 Value
Proposed Framework: Pre-MEGa
• Guidelines/Heuristics for design and
evaluation of Preschoolers’ Mobile
Educational Games
•15 categories with sub-categories:

15. Proposed Framework: Pre-MEGa

16. Proposed Framework: Pre-MEGa

17. Screen Design
Menus
Clear picture menus without
text
 Consistent design
 Layout efficient and visually
pleasing
 Similar learning objects are
organized in a similar style

18. Screen Design
Icons
 Visually meaningful
 Large, easy to select
No phantom icons

19. Screen Design
Mobile & Touch Screen Specifics
 Cautious Response with tilt functionality
 No buttons near screen edges
 Simplified screens, adaptable to
different sizes
 Using device interface and game
interface for their own purposes
 Consistent control keys following
standard conventions
 Interruptions are handled reasonably
 Accomodation to surroundings
 Sessions can be started quickly

20. Navigation & Control
 Simple one layer menus with direct
access
 Consistent, logical and minimalist
controls
 Help Kids know where they are
 Remember things already discussed
 Choices to select strategies (even if
instructionally irrelevant)
 Control over rate and order of display
 Clear exits from all sub-games
 Main menu accessible everywhere
 No irreversible errors

21. Ease of Use
 Require age-appropriate
skills only
 Bigger areas for selecting,
dragging and tracing
 Enable independent use
after first use
 Consistent responses to
user actions

22. Responsiveness
 Short, interruptible routines
and animations
 Let kids accidentally•
succeed in the first 30
seconds
 Quick, clear response to
touch and no stagnation

23. Game Design
Game Type and Scope
 Combine simple exploratory non-
goal-oriented games with more
sophisticated goal-oriented
games
 Support different playing styles
 Offer a chance for creativity and
self-expression
 Include collaboration options

24. Game Design
Game Story
 Supports game play and is
encouraging.
 Offers a social experience
 Fosters imagination
 Provides positive role models
and messages

25. Game Design
Challenge Elements
 Set a clear, fun goal which quick
subgoals
 Clear, fun and physically age-appropriate
actions to reach the goals
 Balance challenge, strategy and pace
 No repetitive or boring tasks
 Visible reminder of progress
 Offer some uncertain outcomes
 Convenient, flexible, game controls
 Support player-created goals
 Option to compare results
 No loss of any hard-owned possessions

26. Learning Potential
 Offer sufficient amount of content
 Provide deeper, applicable learning
 Make connections to authentic uses of
learned content
 Include sels-assessments to advance
child achievement
 Report advances of child
 Embed teacher/parent options

27. Instructions
 Age-appropriate, easy to understand and
remember
 Supportive rather than distracting
 Using clear-speech
 Integrated in the context of the problem

28. Feedback
 Frequent, variable, age-appropriate, context-
related
 Employs meaningful graphics and/or sound
 Descriptive, non-evaluative
Positive:
 Motivational
 Attractive, fun, humourful
Negative:
 Let children know if they made a mistake
 Offer helpful hints to correct actions

29. Difficulty Level
 Activities resembling adults' which look "difficult“
 Include suspense and "danger" without leading to
fear or frustration
 Offer different levels of difficulty and/or
expandable complexity
 Do not underestimate or talk down to kids

30. Content Delivery & Presentation
 Use a theme meaningful to children
 Embed in fantasy contexts
 Based on real-life experiences and
related to socio-cultural context
 Support with high quality graphics,
audio and visual effects
 No graphics detracting from
educational intention
 Use music and songs
 Use cartoon characters which are like
the child, interesting to him or from his
own culture
 Multimedia elements assist and are
consistent with the learning process

31. Content Delivery & Presentation
 Introduce concepts through many entry points
 Divide information into smaller chunks
 Use verbal rehearsal to foster memorization
 Illustrate abstract concepts with concrete
examples
 Use novel ideas and techniques for learning
 Stimulate further inquiry
 Vary activities during learning sessions to avoid
boredom
 Use "Surprises" and employ random generation
techniques
 Use humor, paradoxes and interesting stories.
 Give kids unusual or exaggerated powers

32. Pedagogical Agent
Characteristics
Attractive
Free of gender or ethnic bias
 Establishes credibility and
trustworthiness
 Establishes a role and relationship to
user/task
Polite and positive
 Expressive
 Context-appropriate visual
representation

33. Pedagogical Agent
Interaction
 Responsive and reactive to help requests
 Redundant
 Asks for feedback
 Balances on-and off-task communication
Message
 Appropriate to receivers abilities, experiences and
frame of reference
 Verbal matching non-verbal message
 Clearly owned by agent
 Complete and specific
 Describe feelings by name, action or figure of speech

34. Customization
 Possibility of personalizing experience
through own voice or avatar
 Adapting difficulty level to progress
 Makes experience adaptable to gender
or gender-neutral
 Adjustable sound which can be toggled
 Availability in different languages
 Saving child's creations
 Customized, individualized feedback
 Offers choice of scope, themes or
playing styles.

35. Security
 Ensures privacy of personal
information
 Free from ethnic bias, violence,
scariness, inappropriate
language or behavior
 Free from inappropriate ads, ads
which detract from content, or
that lead to accidental purchases
 Includes parental control options

36. Accessibility
 Can be used on a variety of devices
 Available in different languages and
countries.
Value
 Over-delivers and
undersells.

37. Using for Design
 Define your design priorities (we
suggest using the PLU model,
with redefining U for usability)
 Define your user-specific design
requirements
 Use the above to prioritize and
translate framework heuristics
into concrete design
requirements.
 Start with the highest priority
requirements within the time
constraints, add additional
features in further updates.

38. Using for Evaluation
 Setting priorities for the different categories of
heuristics in the framework (the PLU-E model
can be used here)
 Assigning weights to categories according to
priorities
 Checking which requirements are met and
getting a rating for each category
 Adding ratings of categories using the
assigned weights to get an overall rating of the
product.
 For comparing different products, the same
weights should be used.