Developing Didactic Game for Ethnic Children
Rodna Marrufo Segura Berenice Morales Pisté
Facultad de Matemáticas UADY Facultad de Matemáticas UADY
Mérida, Yucatán, México Mérida, Yucatán, México
Email rodna_adnay@hotmail.com Email bere_gema14@hotmail.com
Rodrigo Fernández Novelo
Facultad de Matemáticas UADY
Mérida, Yucatán, México
Email rodrigofdz@gmail.com
Abstract
Nowadays exists a wide range of educational
tools such as encyclopedias and interactive me-
dia. Had a major impact on the learning pro-
cess of the kids. But most of these tools aren’t
avaible for all kind of people due economic
factors or the tool aims for another cultural
group. In Mexico the education has become a
social problem according to the INEGI[1] 53% of
a population in range between 14 to 18 years
old do not assist to school anymore due eco-
nomic problem or lack of preparation on their
early years at elementary school. Knowing this
we develop an education tool to help Mayan
communities in Mexico especially children
through didactics games which can help them to
complement their education and getting a better
Spanish. The main on this article is to show the
process in how we develop this tool an ethnic
group.
Keywords
INEGI : Instituto nacional de estadística y geografía.
(National center of statistics and geography)
CCA: Centro comunitario de aprendizaje
(Learning community center)
DGEI: Dirección General de Educación Indígena
(General direction of indigene education)
Levy Juarez Dorantes
Facultad de Matemáticas UADY
Mérida, Yucatán, México
Email levi_ulises@hotmail.com
INTRODUCTION
The actual educational tools are wining the battle
against the traditional ways of teaching because it is
way more dynamic and entertainment than stay and
listen a professor 4 hours nonstop. Behind all of this
educational tools or a computer general interface are
techniques of new and raising discipline called human
computer interaction or HCI and adding an user center
design deliver a powerful new ways of interaction
that’s why we base our develop in this two disciplines.
The development process was for about 4 months we
dived the process in four of steps:
• Choosing he project
• Requirements
• Development
• Testing
These were the process that we been through the entire
development process.
The Team
We are currently students taking the third semester in
the Faculty of mathematics of UADY this paper it is
for a HCI class.
1
1-Choosing the Project
The development takes place in Mérida Yucatan. Yu-
catan has a big speaking Mayan population communit-
ies outside the city have shown in the Figure1.
Figure 1. Mayan speaking people density INEGI.
After watching the data of the people in Yucatan
whom speak Mayan we push ourselves to work and
choose some project related to this community. One of
the author of this paper Berenice proposes to create a
didactic tool to improve the Spanish of the children of
Mayan communities who already in school in a range
of age between 7 – 8 years old. We present our idea to
the professor and it was accepted. So we begun to
point out the important that this project could and the
benefits from it.
Social Relevance
Thinking in just the fact of helping communities who
are constantly forgotten by the government only be-
cause they speak a different language or fail in school
because they never had the same preparation level, and
denied them tools to help them to improve their learn-
ing just because language barriers it seems unaccepted
able for us. And motivated and encourage us to work
with this issue even is just a little help, it has an im-
portant social relevance.
Factibility
One of the many question we had consider was how
factible the project was, as mentioned before we saw
the that population was big and according to DGEI[2]
has for about 645 indigene schools and every town
outside the city has a CCA which is open for all the
community to learn how to use a computer or access
information and is regular use by the school to take the
students there. This information was what we looking
for this gave and idea of what are we working on.
The plan
The next step on the process was to create a work pro-
gram, we set dates to take the process in order to avoid
problems that could be found, we manage to take the
process very well as we use software engineer tech-
niques to recollect requisites.
2-.Requirements
The first step on making requisites was to create ideas
of how we want to application behave and what are the
mains functionality of the project to do this we use a
an affinity diagram in class and it gave us clearly idea
of what we want the project to be.
The second step on this stage was to identify the main
users of the application that we trying to create, we
identify three main characters who can use the applica-
tion and classified them:
On primary secondary and tertiary user.
• Primary user.
2
 The children their homework. He enjoys playing with games who
• Secondary user. had cards involve, one of is favorites games it is called
Loteria(Bingo) but he recently found out that in his
The admin of the CCA. community center a new type of PC games that he can
• Tertiary user. use to learn new words from it in Spanish with his fa-
The parent related to the children. vorite games, he was so excited at moment that he ran
out to tell her parents and friends the new type of
Once we already identify and classified our user we
games that he is gonna use at this center.
started to creating persona scenarios and users pro-
files.
This is the user profile a persona and scenario of the Scenario
main user.
One day Pedro told to his parents that he was having
User Profile. problems with some of the Spanish words , so Pedro’s
parents talk to his professor and he told them that the
Age: 7-8 years old.
community center is waiting for a new type of di-
Gender: female or male. dactics computer games that Pedro can used to expand
Location: Mostly outside the city. his vocabulary and knowledge he just to wait until ar-
rive. One week later Pedro was randomly walking on
Social-economic Status: low income.
the street when he was told by his friend Jorge that a
Education: Elementary School. new type of Pc games arrived in their community cen-
Computer experience: none or basic experience. ter , so they went to ask what exactly is this game
Specific product experience: They have experience about, when they arrived they were assigned to a com-
with some related interfaces(games). puter, Pedro already know how to use a computer ,
Jorge’s skills are null so he needs to be assisted, Pedro
Technology available: In their communities centers run the program and he saw that he can choose
they can find these computers. between Mayan interface or Spanish interface, he also
Attitudes and values: some of them fear of technology, saw a brief tutorial how to play these mini-games, so
they mostly are willing to learn. he start to play the memorama mini game he realize the
Learning style: Visual learners(through didactic games is different from the game original memorama
games) he actually can relate the Spanish words and incorpor-
ate into his vocabulary, he was quickly expanding his
vocabulary, he found that if he make a correct move-
Persona ment he’s gonna to be reward by the interface. after
Name: Pedro Pech May. playing 30 minutes he discover that as he advance in
the game the words became more complex so he save
Age: 7 years old.
his advance after doing this he look up for other
Type of user: Primary User. games, he enjoy the reward system and the figures in
Disabilities: he can’t fully speak Spanish. the games after 1 hour of playing he had to give his
place to another kid so he close the program and left.
Location: Kinchil, Yucatan.
Skill set: he speaks a fluent Mayan, he has a basic
knowledge using a PC and Spanish, and he can read
and write. We recollect our data through Open interviews Closed
ended surveys and observation, we choose this meth-
Hobbies: Playing with his friends, reading.
ods because it was best option for the group that we
Goals: getting good grades at school be a doctor. were taking information.

Pedro is a normal kid who enjoys playing all the time

with he also loves to read and helping his friends doing

3
We had and open interviews the professors of the chil-
dren The most important information that provided to
us was that “the children don’t have any support at
home, when tried to do the homework if they gets stuck
the parent cant help them, because they lack of basic
knowledge” so we find out that generation over genera-
tion has the same problem, so this was a social prob-
lem we address, the professor mentioned other prob-
lems that the children have. they cant pronounced
“RR” or some other word outside his vocabulary, this
was confirmed when we apply the closed ended sur-
veys to them.
Figure2. Early prototype

When the survey was apply we told them to make a re-

As we were analyzing the data we encounter that the
lation between two concepts, the vast majority weren’t
interface lack of all elements the user need such as the
unable to do so, and we discover their lack of vocabu-
most important thing the help to user, we weren’t con-
lary and their orthography was really bad, all of this
sidering the user abilities to identify and map the ap-
data was addressed in to the requisites of the project.
plication so we quickly discard this wire frame and we
create considering all the data at moment the wire
Table1. Numbers of participants when recollecting data frame in figure3.
Professor interviewed. 3
Surveys taken. 18

Once we had this information we started to analyze it,

we create more affinity diagrams and selecting the pri-
orities on the project.

3-.The Development

In the development stage we consider all data and the Figure3. More complete wire frame.
previous analysis, in a sense we needed to build a
simple and consistence interface based on didactics
games, thus we consider pedagogy point of view so we When we agree in how the elements on the wire frame
extend the concept of user center design to learner cen- should look we started to fill the interface with ele-
ter design[3] knowing this we came into a most have in ments and colors. We had in mine that our primary
the interface Simplicity Visibility and Freedom witch user is 7-9 years old so try to deferments colors on the
are the elements of user center design taking this ap- interface as shown in figure 4.
proach we came to first wire frame of the interface.
Our early prototypes were made as a wire frame to
help us to organize our subjects and making all access-
ible, the very first attempt to make an interface is
shown in the next figure.

4

Figure4.The first welcome windows.
We weren’t aware about the colors that we use in the
first prototype that background was yellow we realize
that it will make the user puke just for watching the
colors so we immediately change the colors to the ba-
sics colors mostly used in web design.
After we discard the colors from the prototype we and
adopt a name “YAGO” which is end word of Maya –
juego, and reorganize the color set we came with a
good interface.
The Interface
Once we adapt the interface as we want we start it to
add on icons previously tested on the user and the res-
ult in figure5.
Figure5.Main windows of the interface
The main windows
The main widows has an attractive iconography to any
primary user according to our surveys, a carnival
theme was the chosen one by the users. As you can see
We already considering a minimalist design in the in-
terface to make it more intuitive to the primary user.
Figure6. Choosing the games
Choosing a game
Once the user plug a name he will enter into this win-
dows, we try to make it visible and simple as possible
according to the heuristics suggestion of jakob to
Nielsen[5] in this picture we tried to minimize the ob-
ject on the interface so the user can focus just on the 3
main objects in this case the game selection as well we
provide information to user to know where is he and
what he can do. Figure6.
5
 the main cards of the game. The point of the games is
to hear a card name and take bean and put the bean on
the top of the card table, as well we provide a feedback
to the user if they make a mistake they one life on the
interface, they have a life counter the little green men
in figure 7, this is to promote a better understanding
and they can focus even more of what is he doing.

Figure6. Background providing consistence.

Background

This the main windows of the interface we mix the ba-

sic colors to make it a easy and friendly, we total fail
on making the prototype as mentioned before, and we Figure8. Memo-o-rama Game.
basically remove the brightest colors of all and re-
placed by the favorites selected on the surveys, as well
we provide to this interface good consistence the pro- Memorama:
gram wont chance if the user want to access another
game. Figure 6.
Memo-o-rama is a well common know game in every
culture, it based on flip cards until you find the equal
The Games
cards, this was the best option for us in a pedagogy
point of view since the kids are visual learners. In this
interface the kid won’t have a life counter or will have
any penalization for a mistake. Figure 8.

Figure7. Loteria Game

Lotería:

Figure9. Etiquetalos Game.

This is the most popular traditional game on Mexico is
based on Mexican culture, but we modified the current
project of an institution INDEMAYA[4] and use it has Etiquetalos:

6
We based our game in game called tag-it which is used
as entertainment in the UK at elementary schools, the
main reason of why choose this is because it promotes
to user to relate concepts and new words, the system
gives a word and the user has to plug it on the tag of
image provoking dynamic visual learning. As well the
user will count with a life counter. Figure 9.

Dictionary

One of the many cool features is the dictionary we add

it because it helps the user to recover from errors it is
crucial in a learning environment to ensure the learning
is correct, and making more comfortable the interface.
we used and icon who was the most identified in the
surveys a simple book with the later A and Z, as well
the object is visible at any time. Figure 10
Figure11. Help.
Entry to another game
As we mention before we develop a consistence inter-
face so changing a game to another it is really simple
,the object shown in Figure12 helps the user to access
any game even if he already interacting with another
game.

Figure10. Dictionary.

Help
Figure12. Option menu.
Providing help it is crucial in any interactive system,
so we added and familiar icon represented by a life-
guard the icon was choose due result of the surveys
,after the user interact with the object the object will Notes
display a sub-option menu who deliver instruction
about the games explaining rules, and to use it. Figure
We consider this feature because we want them to
11.
have a freedom especially more advanced user when
using the interface, where they can add words to the
pad and remember it later provoking the user to write

7
in there and relate it system, in this case the feature is
not a mandatory to use. Figure13.
the task that they have to accomplish and share the
copies to the participants, before that we selected a
couples of task that we find very important for every
primary user to use.
That’s why we measure the time when the user is:
• Choosing a game.
• Understanding the Interface.
• Find out how to change a game.
• Understanding how to interact with the games.

Our estimation before the test is shown in table2.

Table2. Estimation on Usability test.
Test Time
Choosing a game. 12-20 seconds
Figure13. Notes

Understanding the Inter- 20-40 seconds

face.
4-.Testing
Find out how to change a 20-40 seconds
Testing the work obtained is hard work to do we divide game
our testing stage in to two sub areas.

Understanding how to in- 10-20 seconds

• Developing use cases teract with the games.
• Usability test

We develop for about six uses cases and trying to The results obtained after the test are shown in Table3.
avoid the happy path on the cases, when creating the
use cases we consider only the primary user because Table3. Results from the Usability test.
he’s the one who has full interaction with interface Kid1 Kid 2 Kid 3 Kid 4
considering the cases when fail in completing a task Understanding 12-15 sec 12-15 13-16 12-15
for us was the most important uses cases of all, when the Interface. sec sec sec
he feel lost and some system issues as well.
Find out how 16-20sec 25-30 20-25 22-26
to change a sec sec sec
Usability test are critical in any interface when we ana-
lyze the data of the observation we saw the that users game
had problems on mapping a concept or sometimes a Choosing a 7-12 sec 10-12 10-14 8-12sec
basic symbol game. sec sec

So we set a plan in how are going to plan the usability Understanding 6-10sec. 12-10 9-14 8-18 sec
test, when the usability test was planned we were con- how to interact sec sec
sidering the first week of 2009, but when we came with the games
back to the school they haven’t came back! from the
winter break, so we have to apply the test to only 4
kids, The day when we apply the usability the we pho-
tocopy the interface and explained to the participants

8
We were shock by the results, the estimation was cor- [4]Indemaya[Online]
rect almost every test was in the range proposed by us http://www.indemaya.gob.mx/sobre-indemaya/in-
we currently planning on making more usability test to dex.php [Accessed: November, 2008].
make a validation on the results.

Future work [5]Jakob Nielsen [Online], Ten usability Heuristics

When we present our interface to the public a lot of
question were asked , but the most significant was a
question made by a professor she asked us why is the
interface only to help Mayan children to complement
their education and not for promoting and learning the
Mayan language ? It looks like a good idea to involve
the community into learning another language that
already considering.
http://www.useit.com/papers/heuristic/heuristic_list.ht
ml [Accessed: November, 2008].
Reference who weren’t quote on the text but we used
as reference of topics.
Wilbert O. Galitz, The Essential Guide to User Inter-
face Design, year 2002.

Conclusion Jeff Johnson, GUI Bloopers 2.0: Common User In-

terface Design Don'ts and Dos (Morgan Kaufmann
The development of an educational tool especially for Series in Interactive Technologies) ,year 2007.
an ethnics groups is more complex than working with
larges groups, but there is no excuses after watching
Catherine Courage, Kathy Baxter, Understanding
the social remainder that Latin America is living, we
Your Users: A Practical Guide to User Requirements
need to keep research on ethnics groups and the educa-
Methods, Tools, and Techniques (Interactive Techno-
tional tool that they need instead of stay at home watch
logies), year 2004, chapter 3-7.
a country going down due a educational issue who can
easily solve by promoting developers in general to
work with them.

REFERENCES
[1]Norma Luz Navarro Sandoval, Marginación
Social Entre los jóvenes.[Online]
http://www.inegi.gob.mx/inegi/contenidos/espanol/pren
sa/contenidos/articulos/sociodemograficas/mar-
ginacion.pdf [Accessed: October, 2008].

[2]DGEI Dirección General en Educación Indígena

[Online]
http://basica.sep.gob.mx/dgei/flash/mapa-dgei30JU-
NIO.swf [Accessed: December, 2008].

[3] Amy Bruckman ,Alisa Bandlow,The Human-Com-

puter Interaction Handbook, Eds. Julie Jacko, Andrew
Sears, ,HCI for Kids, year 2002