Prototype 1

These pictures are the first prototype we made after the first presentation. We did our first user test in class with two other students. The first user testers made some very useful remarks for us to continue on perfecting our concept. Further into the process, you'll see our music board changing a lot but this was the first physical board we made

The most important points of feedback we got out of the first user test was to give less options for the shapes on the board, remove the straight pieces and find a way to make it feel less like a puzzle.

Our second user test was with a teacher (Maytal)
Côme made some notes and a video. After this user test there were some questions arising regarding the shapes and visuals on the shapes.

The feedback we got from Maytal:

- Think about a name for the device, it'll help understanding what it does.
- Think about a pattern of maybe 2/3 shapes that are combinable : irregularity of the shapes and the fact that one cannot combine them gives frustration.
- Too many sizes and shapes are not necessary, because the irregularity and flexibility will come from the visual.
- Also, we have to think about how to connect the visuals to the artist : an additional booklet or document to describe the artist/his album and link it to the music with a QR code could be nice

We decided to do another quick test with new questions that came to mind during test 2. This test was done with a student.

The feedback we got back was:

"The fact that you cannot combine the shapes gives frustration"

> Visual is then the escape

"Irregularity is nice because it gives more than one answer to the puzzle"

For user test 4 we asked Baschz to test the first working board with some sample sounds we picked from the MaxMSP program we're using. We got some great feedback from him on some technical and visual aspects. His reaction was very positive because of the reactivity and syncing of the sounds. Moreover he said we need to specify the age of the usergroup more, so we can make more concrete decisions based on that.

We asked Wilco to do a short test with us as well. It was mostly to see if the just completed prototype (now from wood) worked, and if there was anything we still needed to change. It was now a wooden board with screws, wooden pieces with magnets and stickers covering it.

He also suggested that we'd use magnets inside the board to make it a better user experience. That's when we started researching how to include these magnets.

This was the first test we did with our actual user group. After contacting primary schools and visiting the library, we decided to freestyle it and search for children on the street. We found a mother with two children waiting for an appointment next to a table with board games. The nine year old boy started playing with the pieces and we got really valuable feedback from him, as well as from the mother: 'are the colors related to anything?' 'do you offer more genres of music with it?' and so forth.

This test was really successful!

We found some more children playing on the street and asked the parents if we could test our board with them. Two of the kids were 6 years old and the other two children were a little bit younger. This test came out really valuable as well, because we found that the age rage we set was too young (around 4-8). The children didn't really understand the music aspect and were still lacking 'motoriek'.

They were treating our board as a puzzle solely. The shapes of the pieces were meant to be a stepping stone to get started with the music, not a puzzle.