Many UX professionals (myself included), rightfully, feel threatened by AI’s ubiquity. It is uncanny how long it has come in an extremely short time right before our eyes. I remember hearing about it at the Computer Science department where I used to teach, and I dismissively thought this was just a hobby for nerds. How wrong I was! We cannot dismiss AI’s capabilities anymore, no matter how much we want to. And boy, do we want to!
But, as Kate Moran and Sarah Gibbons point out in their clear-sighted article, our critical thinking, creativity, taste, and soft skills are superpowers that make us as needed (if not more) as ever. AI can serve as an intern and a first draft generator (thank you, Joe Natoli, for the amazing ideas you shared in your webinar)
My only concern is how we can convince business leaders and hiring managers to see it the same way and not rely on algorithms. Maybe I should ask perplexity about that:-)
User Testing with Minors
Minors (people under the age of 18) encompass a wide range of levels in physical, social, emotional and cognitive development. Accordingly, some of the guidelines vary based on the participants’ age, while some of them are applicable for all ages.
Overall Guidelines
Recruiting
- While teenagers can be reached directly by posting on social media or in public places (libraries, schools, gyms, malls, etc.), most recruiters go directly to the parents. Minors under the age of 18 in the US, and 16 in the UK (no matter how mature they are) are not allowed to participate in studies without parental/guardian consent. Note: The age of majority in ALL US states is 18 or higher (unless someone is an emancipated adult by getting married or having a child younger) https://minors.uslegal.com/age-of-majority/
- Besides getting written consent from the parent/legal guardian, researchers also need to get participants’ agreement, a.k.a. assent, which does not need to be in writing. Assent is the informed consent given by the minor – this needs to be communicated in an age-appropriate manner. So while minors are not allowed to participate in research without consent from their legal guardian, they themselves are required to give assent – an informed consent as a second requirement for the study.
- Talk though the assent form days before the research. This accomplishes two things:
- Making sure that the minor participant understands what is asked of them to ensure an informed assent.
- Screening for sociable participants as many kids and teenagers are shy with strangers.
- Recruit more than the number of participants needed because the risk of something happening that prevents a participant from showing up is doubled when a parent needs to provide transportation to the testing facility.
- As both the parent and the minor are involved, make sure you offer compensation to both of them. While cash is appreciated by everyone, younger people appreciate gift cards to their favorite online and brick-and-mortar stores.
- Try advertising in places where parents are likely to hang out:
- Offline, using fliers in public places
- Storytime places
- Extracurricular programs for kids (swim school, indoor playgrounds, children’s museum, YMCA, etc.)
- Online:
- Facebook groups involving parents
- Post ads on relevant websites, use GoogleAds, or Facebook Banner
- Offline, using fliers in public places
- In your recruiting material, spell out the following pieces of information:
- Targeting criteria (What kind of participants you are looking for)
- Incentives (In what ways participants will benefit – not just financially. Many children are happy to help if they see the research as a worthwhile activity)
- Logistics (time commitment and location)
- Sign-up information (URL, email, phone number)
COPPA – The Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act, a federal law
Effective starting April 2000, revised in 2008
- Applicable to any website/application that may collect information from children under the age of 13. This federal law requires that the website/application discuss – in terms that are understandable to children – the following
- The child is not asked to provide any more information than necessary for participation
- Their parent can refuse the information collected on the minor, can request to have it deleted, and refuse further collection or use of information and explains how to do this.
- Name and contact information of all operators collecting and maintaining the information
- The kinds of information being held and how the information is being collected.
- How the operator will use the information.
- Whether the information is disclosed to 3rd parties and if so, who they are, and what it is for, and giving the parent the option to opt-out of sharing the information with 3rd party
- See Nickelodeon’s website information for example.

Conducting Research
General Guidelines
- Dress casually
- Building trust is crucial – set a friendly tone by sharing information about yourself so that they can relate to you.
- Promote a casual and fun atmosphere.
- Tailor your language to the kids. Remember, they don’t want to be considered younger than their age,at the same time, you don’t want to be obscure.
- Make sure you are prepared with a variety of activities – younger people tend to complete the usability tasks faster, and are satisfied once they get an acceptable answer. Unlike older participants, they tend not to double check their work!
- Vary up the activity at least every 20 minutes, or more frequently depending on how fast your minor participants get bored.
- Bring plenty of materials such as paper, scissors, markers, etc.
- Encourage them to give a free answer by using creative techniques such as word associations, drawings, fill-in-the-gaps.
- Understand that children’s everyday experience will strongly influence their answers till they reach the maturity level of abstract thinking and hypotheticals (around age 11).
Broken down by Age Groups
Under the age of 3
- Hard to research but is possible starting at around 18 months
- Test material must have visual and physical elements to it
- Make sure that toddlers react to your test material and not to you.
- They need to be in their own environment (at home, with their usual caregiver)
Between 3 and 6 of age
- Lay down the ground rules at the beginning of the session
- Testing material must be visual
- Tap into their imagination and empower them with role play – Preschool children tend to be highly creative.
- Still important to have an adult they know around to provide reassurance to them
Between 6 and 11
- As their memory is still limited, make the stimulus available right in front of them
- Best to interview them with a friend
Between 11 and 16
- Teenagers are generally capable of abstract thinking: they are able to engage in in-depth discussions about hypothetical issues (what ifs)
- They want to be treated like adults – that way they are more likely to respond maturely and share their ideas.
- They are proud and happy to talk about their personal interests and tastes. It is important to treat them as individuals and not to patronise them.
- Paired interviews often allow them to share more freely
Sources:
- Tianyu Hu Lange: Tricks for User Testing with Kids. https://uxdesign.cc/tricks-for-user-testing-with-kids-bd4cfaf36b12
- Franco, C., Stringer, E., User Research and Testing with Children. UX Scotland 2014
- Naranjo-Bock, C: Approaches to User Research When Designing for Children. https://www.uxmatters.com/mt/archives/2011/03/approaches-to-user-research-when-designing-for-children.php
The validity problem in UX Research
All aspiring UX researchers and designers start their training by learning about the classic tool of usability testing as the cornerstone of learning about the pain points users face when trying to complete their goal using an application. Standard curriculum stuff, really because it can be done badly, and/or professionally. Granted, there is some disagreement about certain features in the middle (does the researcher need to behave like an automaton to be objective, do they need to display a bleeding heart to show their immense empathy with the user?). That is fodder for another post (story: I was criticized once for being too happy to see the participant in a session. Whatever. These are minutiae.
The fundamental question is: Can we trust anything we learn from usability sessions?
My answer is … well, take it with a big chunk of salt. A usability session is the most artificial setting, when a participant is given ample time, an incentive to focus on a very focused aspect of an application, in a quiet, calm setting, enjoying the special attention they receive from the researcher (and maybe even more people behind the looking glass), while told to relax, as there could be no harmful consequences of anything they do or say.
Needless to say, when most of us try to use an app
- we are short on time
- our attention is divided by competing websites and notifications and screaming children/spouse, and phone calls
- in a noisy grocery store, playground, etc.
- trying to hold on to a stroller/wallet/ pushcart
- we don’t have the glasses with us
- mistakes are costly and
- nobody is there to make us feel special
I guess we are all aware of this, how our environment is really not letting us focus on what we are trying to accomplish. If only we had time and quiet, we could focus, and get whatever we need to get done in no time. RIght? All we UX researchers need to do to make our sessions more authentic is to provide a lot of noise, some tote bags, blurry screens, and yell at the participants to speed it up, we don’t have all day. Well, not so fast. Turns out, it is not just the external environment that makes these sessions far from a realistic use of the app. TBC
Recent research however shows that even when we are actively using our computers, Wtrying to get something done, we change what we see on our screens by clicking on a different tab, or apps every 13 seconds !!!! The finding that our attention span being shorter than that of a goldfish is an often-cited meme but most people associate that with social media browsing, designing to just dip our toes into some content, then move on to something else.
Leo Yeykelis et al.’s study participants, however, recorded over four days, engaged in all kinds of activities, including work and watching videos did not, as expected, complete one task (such as reading an article or watching a video) before moving on to the next one. Instead, they kept on switching from one activity to the other, from starting a transaction, then switching to .something else, then back again. This was true for every single participant in the study, indicating that it is not just people with severe ADHD who flitter around from one attractive website to another. While participants’ screenograms (the highly individual composition and sequence of screens visited) varied widely, and no two ones were alike, the one feature shared by all was the frequent task switching.
Where does that leave us, UX researchers? Let’s start thinking about how we can make our sessions closer to people’s real experiences. Besides the standard background noise and other disruptions, we may need to integrate flow-interrupting activities such as watching short videos, reading a neutral tweet, math problems, unrelated product browsing in our sessions. If our participants can still confidently complete the task assigned (granted, over a longer period) then we can be more reassured that we indeed tested the design.
UX Research is not a one-time thing
I have come across this, in my opinion, flawed diagram on ADOBE”s blog called A Comprehensive Guide to U
UX Research. It is a circle, and so the idea is that this is the flow of an iterative process, with research starting the flow of design, prototyping, building, testing an back to research. And I am fine with iterative processes – that is a cornerstone of all good designing (a verb, not a noun).
The diagram suggests a very expensive and inefficient way of product design – how many hours will it take to prototype and build something only to realize that it won’t work? Or won’t work the way you had hoped it would?
If building is a separate step from prototyping, then building means coding? What does it mean? And with the plethora of tools Adobe enables designers to use – one of them being XD that this article is supposed to promote, then why not use rapid prototyping and just test it, for god’s sake! Gather feedback from potential users! Gain insights as soon and as fast as you can!