The problem with interviewing kids

At UX Brighton last night GiGi Demming (Head of User Testing at SCEE in London) gave a talk on gameplay research involving kids. She neatly summed up one of the problems with interviewing kids – the “I like turtles effect”:

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This video went viral a couple of years ago and has had about 12.5 million views, so you may have seen it before. When interviewed later, little Jonny admitted “I was just having nervous thoughts in my mind and thinking about turtles, I found a snapping turtle there that was really cool and I just wanted to blurt it all out.”. Ah, bless!

Also speaking last night was Gareth White, Director of Vertical Slice, a new Brighton-based gameplay research agency. Among other things, he talked about some of the differences between playability and Usability. He showed a clip this hilarious Zero Punctuation video by Ben Croshaw, which highlights the importance of baseline Usability in gameplay design. It’s well worth a watch if you haven’t seen it (contains lots of swearing). Fast forward to 2:20 if you’re in a hurry.

If you like that video, there’s loads more here.

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