Change from prototype evaluation

The primary finding from the prototype evaluation was that the analogy between a city map and a Cartesian grid was very helpful to the 9th grader, but actually a little confusing to the adult.

To remedy this, this slide:

...needs to be changed.

The way the text guides the student to locate points on the grid is interesting and fun. But this is where the adult tester got sidetracked, remembering things not thought of for a long time, and trying to do extra things. And this action is not needed to make the point of "zero" lines as starting points, at least not in the detail that I used here.

So the diagram should be changed to emphasize "zero" and not the use of the axes to locate points. And the text should also be reworked in the same spirit.

Diagram on DC structure

This diagram describes where the prototype fits into the Design Concept and the total product. I developed this for the prototype evaluation paper. It also includes the instructional objective for this module.

Displaying the feedback

I had to work a little in the prototype to display feedback for the practice slides. Adding the sound to the right and wrong choices was not difficult, as described in the previous post. But the feedback text slowed me down for a minute.

There may be a better way to do this, but what I settled on was this: When the learner clicks on one of the answers (I built this with the correct feedback only) a hyperlink attached to that choice takes him or her to the following page which is identical to the previous one except that it adds the feedback text. This way it looks to learner like only the text was added, but in fact it was a new page. Here is the first page:



And here is the next page:

Building a prototype

I'm using Powerpoint to build the prototype. Here are some of the things I'm doing with that application.

Using the slide master for the "skin" - the text, like titles, and graphics, like borders, that show on every slide:




Using the page numbering from the slide master, and building non-functioning navigation indicators around it. The tester will be instructed to use normal PPT navigation:



Using Slide Show:Action Settings (from the menu bar) to build some limited animation to the practice slides. Clicking on incorrect answers produces a quack sound. Clicking on the correct answer produces applause and a feedback statement explaining why that is correct and the others are wrong. Here is a page with the long rectangle choices that have the actions linked to them:



There are possibilities for more animation but this seemed like a reasonable balance between "cheasy" and the time it would take to be polished.


In order to test the value of the Cartesian grid analogy, I have two versions of the prototype, one with the analogy slide, and one without. It took a little bit of rewording to the slide following the now-missing analogy slide to provide continuity.

Change to "skin"

Going thru the prototype development it is becoming obvious that the original "skin" is too simple and bland even for a prototype. Even though this is not about usability, I am changing the skin to give it just a little more clarity by adding the red circled changes:

Template or "skin"

Here is the template for the screens for the prototype. It came from the DC and is very simple with lots of white space. The final may be somewhat more sophisticated, but this will do fine for a prototype.

Do I even need it?

Another thought: I'm worried about the analogy to the Cartesian grid being too advanced for the typical student at this level, but do I even need it? Perhaps the concept is simple enough that it doesn't need an analogy.

I will structure the prototype test with two versions, one with and one without the analogy and see how it impacts the ability to do the practice examples at the end.

This implies perhaps a larger trial group, and the results may not be totally clear since it will be hard to ascribe success or failure in the practice pages only to that variable. I will have to pay close attention to their comments.