A Lesson in Scaffolding
As a mother, I love watching my toddler learning to interact with the world around him. As a designer however, I am also fascinated by the how different interfaces, from physical objects like a book, to digital like the screen on my phone, teach him how to interact, how he internalizes those interactions and build a mental model of expectations.
For instance, although we tried to limit screen time earlier on, he did grow up watching everyone around him swipe across our phone screens. I have lost count the number of times he has clambered up the entertainment unit to try to swipe the TV. (Parenting aside: we are so glad we wall-mounted the TV early on.)
Another neat example: my son is fascinated with buttons. Whenever he sees a button, whether it is the elevator, the big steel push plate for door activation, or the on/off on my laptop, he has to push it. I suppose he must have learned early on from his toys. And now that he has acquired language, he will happily point and say push.
So the other day, I noticed that he was toying with a button on my sweater and I casually named it for him as I usually do when he points at things. Immediately, he became fascinated, trying to push it. At first, I thought he was being half-playful/half-rude, poking me until suddenly it clicked in my head that he had come to associate buttons as things to push so that something would happen. For him, buttons are for pushing. Their form factor wasn’t just a signifier for him, the action was a learned behaviour stemming from a pattern of interaction that he had come to associate with the word.
So all in all, watching a toddler interact with interfaces proves some interesting insights. In no way are the things I discuss here new and there are already countless articles about similar topics but I thought it was really neat watching how these design considerations come to life through a toddler learning about the world around him.
A Tale of Two Toys
My son, like most toddlers, has an obsession with phones (as you may have guessed by now). So for Christmas, he got two toy phones from two separate gift-givers.
Curious to see which one he would take to, I offered both to him side-by-side like you see in the photo.
Some behaviours observed:
- There was a much more instantaneous attraction to the Leapfrog phone
- Over time, however as he grew both in cognitive ability and familiarity with the phone, the VTech one would hold his attention slightly longer
- When he starts interacting with the phones for the first time in the day, he often starts with the Leapfrog phone but will transition eventually to the VTech one
Now there are some factors that may also contribute to some of the behaviour:
- The Leapfrog phone’s primary character is a dog, my son’s current favourite, while the VTech one is a parrot, an animal he is less familiar with
- The Leapfrog phone is louder
- The Leapfrog phone uses a younger voice as the voice of the narrator
However, one other important factor became an AH-HA moment for me. As you can tell, the one on the left from LeapFrog is much simpler in design and features compared to the one from VTech.
The Features Difference
In more details, the LeapFrog phone has buttons 0–9 with a ring and a music button. the 0–9 buttons generate the exact same interaction every time. The two other buttons generate a series of different interactions on rotation. But each button does precisely one thing and different combinations of buttons do not generate different interactions.
The VTech one has a lot more options including games that require various amount of inputs such as asking the user to choose which number is the right one. It also relies on a combination of buttons, such as pressing the image gallery then asking the user to use the arrows to scroll through the photos.
Consistency of Interactions and Focused Features
To be frank, I think my toddler probably learned how to count numbers on the LeapFrog phone. He also learned that flowers are for sniffing (with the number 3, the puppy sniffs the 3 flowers on the screen.) Because the buttons are always consistently generating the same interaction, my toddler learned quickly on how to generate the reaction he wanted from the toy.
The number of different interactions from different buttons on the VTech toy confused not only my son but myself as well. He still likes to press them but there’s a lot more random button pushing rather than with purpose.
Design take away: A simplistic feature sets lets your UI be a lot more focused. Single interactions associated with single UI elements will help users learn a lot faster. Complexity comes when you are trying to do too much with each element or worse, with combination of UI elements.
Progression to Expertise
As I mentioned previously, my son would eventually move to playing with the more complex phone (even if he’s not sure how it works). I believe eventually he just gets bored of the more simplistic phone which is totally fair. In that sense, I think there is a place for more complex interactions and features depending on the situation. For instance, once a user has mastered the simple functionality, more complex combinations and interactions are entirely appropriate, especially if it meets the design goals (keep users interested or help speed up their task).
Design take away: Best to save complex interactions for those that have acclimatize to the simpler features. And depending on the type of user and the interface’s raison d’êre you’re trying to design, it may even be a way to meet design goals to provide more complex interactions, especially for the expert user.
For instance, in one of the Neilsen Norman training classes I took, the instructor spoke of a model discussed by Peter A. Hancock and Joel S. Warm in A dynamic model of stress and sustained interaction, that details a psychological zone of max adaptivity, where too much stress (in this case, produced by cognitive load) can lead to the commonly known problems but also if there was too little stress, users can become inattentive, make mistakes or simply not even care. In my toddler’s case, I believe the Leapfrog phone eventually becomes that as time progresses.
However, I do want to emphasize that I believe this is specific to very unique circumstances and is highly dependent on the goals of the application, service or product you are trying to build. For instances, games, where the goal is to keep the user engaged with the product, is a great place to leverage this idea.
Thoughts on Scaffolding
This of course, brings us to the idea of scaffolding. Simply put, it is the progressive disclosure of more features or functionality as users become more familiar with the product or service. The most prevalent example is in games, often in the guise of tutorials or levels (and sometimes a combination of the two.) For example, in games such as Mirror’s Edge or Assassin’s Creed, the game gradually introduces you to more key combinations that produces more complex moves.
I have yet to see scaffolding used commonly however in a single product. However, I believe it is a great technique that can be used in broader just games. For instance, imagine helping the elderly learn how to use the smart phone by progressively disclosing features over time to make the devices less intimidating. Imagine design tools that natively have scaffolding built in so that first-time users are not so overwhelmed.
If you know of some examples of this, please leave a comment! I’d love to study them more.
