C-TOC - Cross-Cultural Review Panel

First Iteration: May 27, 2010

Introduction

• Setup of C-TOC prototype on Douglas College computer lab: no security/admin issues - macros working successfully
• refer to literacy education for seniors / immigrants - largely computer-based
• refer to UBC learning exchange w/ DT east side (apparently 40yo = senior)
• Claudia's introductory presentation
• cultural advisory coordinators: Kymberley Bontinen, Patricia Juvik, Sai Roshni (Priya) Raju; CHCP (centre for health and community partnerships) project manager: Marina Niks
• cultural advisory panel members (5, one missing)
  • Chinese, Japanese, South Asian, Southeast Asian, Latin American communities represented
  • Vivian Lam, Sayuri Sugawara, Kamaljit Kaur, Lam Dang, Karla Maranhao
  • recruited from community groups that interact w/ seniors in their respective communities
  • representative of health-care / extended care related positions, nursing, counselling
  • all members of the panel are immigrants

Interactive Prototype Session Notes

• users: 5 panel members, M. Niks, R. Hsiung, S. Raju, K. Bontinen, P. Juvik (10 total)
• difficulty realising what is a mockup and what is interactive (i.e. drop-down menus in introductory slides) - distinction may not be clear;
  • suggestion: use a warning label in the future?
• red prompts for referring to questionnaire not obvious enough - centre on screen rather than top-left?
  • suggestion: include pictures representative of each test on the questionnaire as reminders / in case they have skipped ahead and forgotten the questionnaire
• drag-and-drop habit hard to shake - everyone had difficulty with click-and-release moving of objects - some skipped the intro slide "move the blue circle into the square"; difficulty arose in sentence comprehension, which depended on this interaction; by this point many had developed an understanding of this interaction
  • will older users be similarly biased / used to traditional drag-and-drop? it requires constant motor pressure - did the panel understand this rationale for using click-and-release?
  • suggestion: try out traditional drag-and-drop in next prototype version and ask what is preferred
• pattern construction instructions not well understood by some users; dragging to other areas of the screen aside from the target zone; for instance, covering the source shape;
  • one user puts all the component shapes back into the source area after completing the target shape; not sure why?
• clicking on trails test not required but done by most users
  • suggestion: state that it is not necessary, provide animated instruction sequence
• click+drag on a shape misaligns the cursor, decoupling it from the shape causing confusion and the possibility for the shape to be dropped off-screen, or being unable to click-to-release shape unless the cursor is clicked on top of the shape;
  • not much to be done - a fault of the PPT macro
• square puzzles not fully interactive - some lines are still missing the drag/drop macro (#7 in particular)
• "stack on top" instruction in sentence comprehension has potential for multiple interpretations: some users layer shapes, some place shapes above one another on screen
• some go/no-go slides not advancing / hyperlink is broken and leads to an erroneous place in the slide deck
• sentence production instructions are still missing the additional instruction to "use as many words as possible"
• computers low on memory after opening 16 slide decks (will be resolved in non-ppt version)
• most participants finished session in 1h20min; final participant in 1h30min ("too long!")

Focus Group Notes

• Could handwriting be used as a diagnostic tool?
• general consensus: this test will work well for well-educated, high-income, well-integrated people
• problem w/ mouse drag-and-drop were vocalised
  • suggestion: avoid this by using touch-screens
• request for audio instructions as optional feature for all test instructions; other instruction formats could include a flow diagram / animated step-by-step instructions
• more practice sessions requested
• language throughout the tests needs to be overhauled, cultural-specific terms discarded; possible to translate into other languages?
  • Similarities test especially sensitive to language norms
  • cultural-specific names in item recognition test misleading (i.e. "stationery item")
  • suggestion: allow family members to translate, but not help with task
• provide an "I don't understand" option, a flag to de-validate a single test if necessary
• community centre use case scenario: group members help one another take the test rather than family/caregivers (peer support)
  • identified shame in cognitive illness, acknowledging it in the household, esp. in South Asian community
• suggestion: provide feedback on each test: descriptive time elapsed, # items correct, where you scored comparatively to pop. norms, past times taken
  • how to deliver potentially bad news over the net? instead direct to community resources regardless of test performance

• next panel meeting (late October 15/28/29?)
  • suggestion: provide a shorter evaluation version of the test for cultural advisory panel (i.e. less trials per test), provide web-accessible version of next prototype version in October, allow them to take + fill out survey from home - likely not in PPT, but in interactive programmed version (Flex?)
  • longer focus group next time, allow discussion on interactivity of each test
  • more focus group members to be recruited

Second Iteration: October, 2010

Third Iteration: January, 2011