Recently I started to work for the “Mobile Game Lab”. The so-labeled organization is constantly testing their games with children. One thing before I continue. I find it important, because I’ve never paid a good attention before. Barbara explained me that “play testing” is quite different from the usability testing. Children are special audience, because they don’t perceive the world the same way as adults do. I was curious to find about the circumstances that started. I turned to Prof. Barbara Grüter, the director of this project. Barbara Grüter is professor for HCI at Hochschule Bremen and director of the research group called “Gangs of Bremen”. She holds a diploma in psychology and is interested in how computer systems are situated in the world.
My first question was whether the children were the target group of the “Mobile Game Lab”? To explain better, we went back to the time the research group was established. Back in the year 2003 Barbara was working with her students at Hochschule Bremen. The students wanted to do something important, something beyond the frame of the study program. And they wanted to do something with games, involving high level technology. They started their game design with the idea of situating a virtual world within the context of city of Bremen and within the life context of urban male and female youth. They decided to create the first version of the “Mobile Games”, called “Situated Games”, games, which are rooted in the world.
Originally the target group was not children, but was youths. The idea to work with children came later. Barbara explained that as a mother, she used to organize treasure-hunt game for the birthdays of her children, when they were little. When we take a closer look on the nature of the treasure-hunt game, we realize that it is a location based game.
And so to my question what children find entertaining playing mobile games, she explained that although those games are not strictly virtual (they relate to physical reality), the real world can be easily turned to a fantasy world. I was curious whether children’s parents are also involved in the play. Barbara replied that not directly. There is future intention to be implemented the so called “game editor”, which offers players the possibility to develop their own games. For example, a mother wants to organize a treasure-hunt game for her child’s birthday she can use the editor to create the story and to deploy the technology. At the same time, the “Mobile Game Lab” provides the technological platform, where parents can also contribute and share ideas about their games.
There are positive benefits, because children and parents can have a good time together: having fun and combining novel experience. Although the existing contradictive opinions, the positive benefits for children are that they will learn to use technology in a playful way, therefore not to fear it. The early age of experience creates precondition children to create their very personal relation towards technology.
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