Week 7 Progress

The goals for this week were:

• Continue fabricating pages and circuits

  • Try to make an external narrator as a power source for the circuits

• Discuss questions for user testing

• Schedule at least one user test

• Finish all illustrations

Fabrication

We completed another page this week, this time using only cardstock paper. It was simple to cut out the illustrations with the vinyl cutter due to the thicker material of the cardstock, and this material lead to sturdier and cleaner pop-ups. It is definitely the main material we will use going forward.

Narrator Circuit

We also tried testing out our idea of a "narrator" character by constructing a paper circuit with an illustration of a bee that the reader will be able to move around between pages. We tried two iterations of this circuit, one using copper tape and one using nylon tape. The copper tape circuit didn't seem to work correctly with the battery, and when we checked in with our mentor Chris Hill he suggested that we tried nylon tape as it was more reliable. So we also made the same kind of circuit using nylon tape and it worked with the battery. The only problem was that when the battery was attached to the cardboard bee instead of left by itself, it wouldn't make the circuit work. We'll have to take another look at the design of the movable bee so that the circuits will still work with the power source attached to it.

HX Testing

We completed one HX test with my friend's 8-year-old niece. She was tasked to look through the story, pop-ups, and simple circuits and answer some questions about it. These were her responses:

Story Questions

• Were there any parts or words that you had trouble understanding?

  • No I thinking the wording is fine

• What did you think of the story?

  • I like the story, about the right level for me.

• What was the message of the story? Do you think Willie did the right things to convince Bucky to be his friend?

  • Becoming friends with everyone. I believe Willie did the right thing.

• What would you do in Willie's place if someone like Bucky was being mean to you?

  • I would follow in Willie’s steps and also try to make friends.

• What do you think about Willie as a character? Is there anything you wish was different about him?

  • I like that Wlillie is kind. I wouldn’t change anything.

Pop-up Questions

• What do you think about the look of the characters? The objects?

  • Everything is fine, I like it!

• How do you like the layout of the pop-ups on the page?

  • Yea!

• Do you wish anything was different about the pop-ups?

  • Nothing at all.

Circuits

• How easy was it to make the LED light up? Did you know what to do without instructions?

  • The button was simple and easy to use.

• How do you feel about interacting with the pages this way? Is there anything that you wish you could do with the page? (such as moving/changing objects or characters?)

  • Having some lights would make it more interesting! Something like pull-able tabs would also make it interesting.

She seemed to like the current illustration and pop-up design we have so far. Something of interest was her comment about the kinds of interactions she might enjoy, such as LED lights and interactions that would allow directly manipulating the page through paper tabs. We definitely have plans to include more LEDs but we could also try to make pop-ups more dynamic with tabs. This addition would require more research into improving our skills for making more complex pop-ups this way.

We plan to conduct another HX test later today with Brooklyn using the same questions.