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# Translating kindergarteners’ creative expressions into engineering specifications to design paper boats.
## Tables of Contents
1. Abstract
2. Introduction
3. Equipment and Methodology
3.1 Experimental Procedure
4. Results and Discussion
5. Conclusions
6. References and Citations
## 1. Abstract
For my research project, my aim is to meet with a 5 year old volunteer for at least 3 sessions. The first session would be to observe the child drawing boats using their imagination.
Session 1: The purpose would be to initially observe the child drawing boats using only their imagination. I would provide white paper, construction paper, markers, and crayons for the child to use. During the session I would start by asking the child to draw a boat. After I would begin to ask them to draw boats based on a goal, task, or objective. Ideally the session would occur within the time constraint of an hour. At the end I would ask the children questions about their experience which would include questions that are open ended for more data to be gathered, as well as short questions that would require a yes or no, easy or hard, and a fun or boring answer. (should I include an answer in the middle? )
Session 2: Test the skills of a 5 year old with computer and tablet games/apps. (May split this into 2 sessions) After I would ask the child questions like, "which game/app was your fav?", "which computer game/app did you like the most?", "" with tablet, "Which game/app was the most difficult to use?", (sepreate them into computer and tablet questions too)
Session 3: Try to build a GUI by this point and test it on them. (not 100% sure yet, need to complete more literature review)
Research tools: interviews, usability-lab studies, participatory design, focus groups, moderated remote usability studies, concept testing, desirabilty studies
The main questions these sessions should answer or provide insight to are the following:
How do we engange the user/designer, with the feeling of excitement to design a boat? (How to we elecit feelings of excitement, with the purpose of design a boat? )
How do 5 year old's express their creativity? (on diff platforms, with diff purposes, free flow play vs not (guided play))
##### Session 1: Meet with volunteer; play games on tablet and computer; observe differences, conduct interview
For the inital session, I will meet with a the volunteer. This session will consist of playing games that are targeted to the 5 year old audience, but these games will be played on a tablet and on a computer. I will observe the difference between each game and platform used. Before ending I will ask the child questions based on the usability of each game on each platform.
Session Specific questions: What functionality should we include (or not) in design? How to engage the user/designer, to excite boat design?
##### Session 2: Meet with volunteer; bring paper and supplies to draw boats boats for different purposes; observe difference, conduct interview
For the second session, I will meet with the volunteer. This session will consist of providing paper (construction paper) and art supplies, the child will be initially asked to draw a boat (figure out how to present it?, dream boat) After the child will be asked to draw boats designed to serve different objectives/purposes. (fast, tall, capacity to carry objects, etc.) Observe how and why they design each boat to their liking, observe the difference between free flow vs not and how it affected their design or their creative expressions? Ask them questions (create a survey)
Session Specific Questions: How do they design it?
##### Session 3: Meet with volunteer; same as sesssion 2, but on tablet and computer; observe differences, conduct interview
For the third session, I will meet with the volunteer. This session will consist of providing a tablet and a computer with drawing applications with the child's objective to draw any boat they want on each platform. I will observe what they draw, how they draw it, which drawing tool they enjoyed more, which drawing application was more usable for the child. At the end I will ask the child questions about their drawings, as well as the drawing tools.