Quibbler

Setup

We had a family bring in their son and his friend (both seven) into a small office where we gave them an assorted set of toys our target user group also plays with. We videotaped them playing under the supervision of their parents. In general, the two boys took turns each individually playing with the Robosapien or the other Transformers and action figures. They each quickly picked up the basic controlling functions of the Robosapien and became engrossed with getting it to do simple tasks such as picking up objects. They were both content with the toys we gave them and seemed to like both the remote-controlled Robosapien as well as the more hands-on Transformers. We got a lot of insight into the shortcomings of current toys and how we'd design to overcome these limitations.

Conclusions

With regard to the Robosapien, we found that our users were able to figure out the main controls of moving the robot about and using simple functions; however, not all the functions were apparent (they didn't figure out the orange mode and they didn't use the programming/recording capabilities). Simple tasks such as picking up objects and putting them in places were enjoyable. They mentioned how some basic useful controls did not exist such as strafing sideways or squatting. Another problem we witnessed was the confusion in left and right side controls because of the occasional change in orientation, although this was a minor usability problem despite its recurring persistence.

Surprisingly, the users seemed to like both the morphing Transformers and the more expensive Robosapien equally well. We hypothesize that the interaction of remote controlling another toy as well as changing it directly hands-on each has their unique enjoyment