Usability Survey of Educational Software Used by Children at Schools

Abstract

The main focus of educational software these days is the content they want to deliver while little to no care is given to the usability of the software. Interfaces are made colorful and attractive to children only to fail miserably in providing a truly fun and usable experience. The purpose of this paper is to provide the designers with an understanding of the child user of these software, who are substantially different from adults. In addition, it addresses the school environment where these software are mostly used and provide a better understanding of the educational goals and the several ways they can be conveyed and delivered via a computer system. Finally, the paper discusses the different interface paradigms and what they offer for educational software, specifically, the potential of idiomatic interfaces in overcoming many of the limitations that children's minds and bodies possess.