Mediabarn Inc

Back-to-School Teacher Insights

heathernam — Thu, 26 Aug 2010 16:41:29 +0000

As millions of children prepare to head back to school this fall, Mediabarn had the opportunity to talk with several elementary school teachers to find out how they prepare for the beginning of the school year.

Since we talked primarily with teachers of Kindergarten through third grade, the top priority for them is bringing students up to speed on classroom routines, rules, policies, and procedures. Many kids in this age range are still learning about the structure of being in a classroom environment.

The social aspect of being in school is also high on the list for classroom teachers. Getting to know each other, setting expectations, learning to walk in a line, working as a team, making everyone feel comfortable, and knowing what motivates a particular group of students are all areas of focus for teachers the first few weeks of school.

At Mediabarn, we’re always interested in the use of technology, so we were also curious to know when classroom teachers introduce technology and computer use to students as part of their regular routines. Given the need to establish ground rules, develop social interactions, and assess academic skills, going to the computer lab or incorporating the computer into learning centers usually takes most teachers a few weeks. Even then, computer use is often not a daily activity for most students at the early elementary level.

We’d like to thank the teachers who participated in our Back-to-School study, and wish all students and teachers a happy start to the new school year!

Mediabarn Delivers at USPTO!

Mediabarn — Wed, 21 Jul 2010 16:11:44 +0000

United States Patent and Trademark Office taps Mediabarn’s User Experience Group for its usability and user interface design expertise. Read more in the press release here:

http://www.mediabarninc.com/about/pressrelease-patent1/

DC Week Event!

Mauro Scappa — Mon, 14 Jun 2010 19:18:14 +0000

Mediabarn is partnering with DC Design Babes once again for a great event coming up next week! As part of the Digital Capital Week here in DC, Mediabarn will be sponsoring “The Wonder Emporium”! With a great location just north of Dupont Circle, the warehouse will most certainly be packed with a ton of fellow creatives to network and party with! It promises to be a great night filled with live music, great events including digital art demonstrations, interactive painting and a live graphic design contest!

Mark your calendars for this can’t miss event on June 18th @ 9pm. Registration is quick and easy! Hurry and get your tickets now before it books up!

Looking forward to seeing everyone!

Designing User Experiences for Children

Jason Pentecost — Mon, 24 May 2010 14:57:00 +0000

Mediabarn’s Director of Usability Research, Heather Nam, just published an article on UXmatters, an online magazine providing insights and inspiration for the user experience community. The article, called “Designing User Experiences for Children,” addresses potential pitfalls web designers can encounter when creating a user experience for children, suggests following design conventions that would be applicable for any user whether adult or child, and details specific findings from four recent web site usability studies conducted in the Mediabarn UX Lab with 85 children ages 3 to 9 years old. Click here to read the article on the UXmatters site.

Mediabarn’s UX Lab sponsors UPA-DC event!

Jason Pentecost — Wed, 24 Mar 2010 20:38:00 +0000

We would love to see everyone tomorrow night at La Tasca for Sangria and Tapas!

Date and time:
March 25, 2010 (Thursday) 6 – 8PM
La Tasca
Spanish Tapas Restaurant and Bar
722 7th St. NW
Washington, DC 20001
202.347.9190

More information at the DC Chapter event page!

Happy Holidays

Mauro Scappa — Thu, 17 Dec 2009 21:01:00 +0000

Another year has come and gone(almost) and we’re excited for 2010 because this year certainly seems to be ending on an upward and positive note!

We’d like to thank everyone that has helped play a part in Mediabarn’s growth this past year and look forward to continuing our success together next year.

We wish everyone a safe and happy holiday season and look forward to another successful year in 2010!

Also, if you haven’t already seen our Holiday Card you should hurry up and check it out for any last minute gift ideas, recipes and stress relievers! We’re hoping “The Cure” will help make an otherwise stressful Holiday Season go a little smoother for everyone this year! Or if you’ve been good and have already done all of your shopping, there are some yummy elixirs you can try!

Happy Holidays from all of us at Mediabarn!

DC Design Babes Event Tomorrow Night!

Mauro Scappa — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 13:53:00 +0000

Halloween’s upon us again and it’s time to get out all of your spooky gear! Come join us and the DC Design Babes as we host their DCDB Halloween Party! The event is tomorrow night, October 29th, so hurry up and register!

We hope to see everyone there, should be a howling good time!

Uplifting Athletes is getting some great press coverage.

Mediabarn — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 13:51:00 +0000

The Boston College Chapter of Uplifting Athletes got a mention during ESPN’s College Game Day this past week as they were spotlighting BC’s defensive star Mark Herzlich’s battle with cancer. They have also been mentioned in the USA Today and the Wall Street Journal in the last few weeks. (http://upliftingathletes.org/bostoncollege/)

Any press is good press, but good press is great press. We’re glad we can help Uplifting Athletes continue to make a difference.

4-H National Science Experiment – Biofuel Blast: Get your results in!

Mediabarn — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 13:41:00 +0000

Throughout the month of October, 4-H is collecting the user’s experiment data for their 4-H National Science Experiment – Biofuel Blast. In preparation for that, we’ve created a Flash ‘quiz’ to collect all the user data. A new database table handles the results and ties into the previously created registration table. It was a pretty straight forward assignment, but shows the great potential Flash has as a serious application Front-end.

(Ask us about our Flash Dash Board projects!)

(http://4-h.org/nysd/results.php)

We are proud that we could help support the 4-H organization.

Little UX Participants in the Office

Jason Pentecost — Fri, 28 Aug 2009 19:10:00 +0000

This week our UX Lab hosted over a dozen kids for one-on-one usability testing. Recruiting and testing 3-5 year olds can be a challenge to the most seasoned researcher, but here are a couple tips that we have found reduce the risky aspects of testing kids.

Don’t recruit children that don’t know how to use a computer, unless you want to see the right mouse dialog repeatedly throughout the session.
Ask what the child uses at home for an input device, as laptops dominate sales, many kids have used trackpads, not mice. If you are testing using a desktop, you can purchase USB trackpads.
Be prepared for bored siblings, young and old. Have distractions for other children that might be coming along, if you don’t have something for them to do, they will certainly try to “help” their siblings.
Recommend to Mommy or Daddy that it might be a good idea to potty break right before going in.
If you need to test over lunch hours, remind parents that they might want to schedule lunch early, or a late morning snack to help avoid meltdowns.
Keep the sessions short. 30 minutes max for under 6.
Balloons for good listeners.

Sure, even with these guidelines we had tantrums, potty emergencies, a couple tumbles, but we had a blast. (and so did our client!)

Testing children requires patience, sure. But to be good at it, it requires a sense of humor and more importantly a sense of adventure.