Week 8 Progress

These were our goals for this week:

• Conduct more user tests - ask about interest in circuits after trying them out

  • Look into video documentation of children interacting with popups/circuits

• Acquire a regular pop-up book to use as a comparison

• More fabrication

  • Get narrator component to work

  • Construct all pages out of cardstock

  • Try to construct paper-based interactions such as pull-tabs

Fabrication

We managed to get the narrator bee component to work after integrating magnets to help hold the connections more securely. This is a huge step because it demonstrates that it is feasible to connect a moving power source to the circuits on each page and make them work, since this way we don't need to give each page individual power sources. I also tried to make a paper-based interaction with push-tabs on the carrots in the garden, which was surprisingly easy and clean to make. We'll continue to reference books from Ruhan for more ideas with paper-based interactions and continue to add simple circuits to pages using nylon tape.

User Testing

We were able to get feedback from 10-year-old Brooklyn about our pop-ups and circuits. Overall she liked the designs and enjoyed the interaction with the bee and the LED:

Story

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

  • It all made sense

• What did you think of the story?

  • Liked when Willie went to the field and made the garden

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

  • Be yourself and nobody else

  • Treat others the way that you want to be treated

  • Yes

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

  • Does not have social media

  • Probably do what Willie's parents said and stay away from social media

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

  • Liked that Willie didn't give up

  • Liked how all the animals went to school

Pop-up Questions

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

  • Like the pictures because it helps to illustrate the story

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

  • Like the pop-ups that put the reader in the perspective of Willie

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

  • No

Circuits

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

  • It was easy to see the outline of the bee in order to place it in the right place and make the interactions happen

• 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?)

  • It's cool because the narrator bee allows you to interact with the page

We also asked her to compare our book to a regular picture book and a pop-up book with slightly better popups but no circuits. She confirmed that she liked our popups and circuits the best as she enjoyed the design of some of the pages, such as the popup of Willie's bed and phone that put the reader in Willie's perspective. This was a promising piece of feedback as it indicates that children will likely enjoy our final book with all its interactions.

Book Comparison

• Which do you like better? The regular popups or the popups with interactions?

  • Liked the bee narrator and the perspective popups

• What did you like about the popups and interactions in the book?

  • Liked the "animated" portions of the popups, such as the rain page where it looked like it was raining and the hearts one with the moving hearts

  • Liked movements because of the "coming to life" aspect

  • Consistent design (dots)