Interactions - January/February 2010

FORUM LIFELONG INTERACTIONS

emerged, as the children did not identify the 3-D
nest we modeled as the place where the hens laid
the eggs. The problem was not simply solved by
remodeling the object; instead, we remodeled and
also used the virtual farmer to reinforce that the
nest was where the hen lays eggs.
We spent some months working to implement
new activities until we felt comfortable with the
interactions. It was during this time that we real-
ized the game needed a story to connect all these
activities to a more general goal. So, we wrote a
story that included our animals and the farmer.
Children use the toys to find ingredients to make a
birthday cake for the farmer’s son. Then, the ani-
mals play traditional games like hide-and-seek with
the farmer’s son.
quickly and directly to accomplish the goals. With
a less talkative farmer, children had to “explore and
discover” and appeared to have more fun.
Today when we see children playing with
NIKVision and the newest farm game, we reflect on
the days when we first started the project. Our pri-
mary concern was how to design tabletop games for
very young children. From our experience, the solu-
tion seems obvious: “Let the experts talk.” Taking
our tabletop game to children gave us inspiration
and ideas for providing solutions that we could
never have imagined on our own.

Acknowledgements
This work has been partly financed by the Spanish
DGICY T Nº TIN2007-63025 and by the Government
of Aragon: IAF Nº2008/0574 and CyT Nº2008/0486
projects.
Moving to Schools

The design resulted in a more complete and struc-
tured game, playable from beginning to end with
two or three children. To get a sense of how the
tabletop could be played with by many different
children, we carried our prototype to several nurs-
eries and schools where children could play the
farm game in pairs. At this stage, their role in the
design process was that of user. We did not inter-
rupt the class routine; the tabletop was like any
other classroom activity [ 5]. Children went over to
the table, played with the game, and then returned
to their normal activities.
We used this new situation to evaluate different
versions of the game. For example, we implemented
three different behaviors of the farmer, varying the
level of guidance he gave to the child to complete
the game: providing the goal of each minigame
“what” (e.g., “I need eggs”); suggesting “what” and
“which” is involved (e.g., “put eggs with the hen”);
and indicating “what,” “which,” and “how” children
have to play (e.g., “do little jumps with the hen on
the nest”).
We used new ways to retrieve useful information
from children. Sessions were recorded with video
cameras. In addition, the game recorded the move-
ments and actions of the toys on the table surface,
so later we could redraw the paths made with a par-
ticular toy during a particular minigame.
Having big groups of children can often be chaot-
ic. However, it was very useful in evaluating differ-
ent unplayed variations of the game with children.
We found that giving more guidance (“what, which,
how”) helped children complete the minigames

ABOUT THE AUTHORS Javier Marco obtained a
B.Sc. in computer science engineering in 1998. He
is currently a Ph.D. candidate in computer science
engineering at the University of Zaragoza, Spain. His
thesis researches the benefits of tangible interfaces
for children and their involvement during design and
evaluation stages. Learn more at http://webdiis.unizar.es/~jmarco.

Sandra Baldassarri obtained a B.Sc. in computer science in 1992 and a Ph.D. in computer science engineering in 2004. She is an associate professor in the computer science department of the University of Zaragoza, Spain, and is member of the Advanced Computer Graphics Group (GIGA).

Eva Cerezo obtained a B.Sc. in physics in 1990 and the M.Sc. in nuclear physics in 1992. She received a Ph.D. in computer science in 2002 and is currently an associate professor in the Computer Sciences and Systems Engineering Department at the Diana Yifan Xu is a member of the Child Computer Interaction (ChiCI) Group at the University of Central Lancashire in the U.K. Her research involves tangible user interface and tangible interaction, evaluating novel technologies for and with children.

Janet Read has a first degree in mathematics from the University of Manchester and a Ph.D. in child-computer interaction from the University of Central Lancashire (UCLan). She is director of the Child Computer Interaction Group at UCLan in the U.K.