Testing the OLPC (One Laptop per child) XO-1 Interface with Children: A Usability Case Study

Usability testing is a keystone activity for user-centered design. Although user centered design has been studied and practiced in the literature on adult computer products, the works on addressing the need to include the user in the design of children’s computer products is still limited. Recently, low cost mobile platforms have been developed for basic education and released into the market. OLPC (One Laptop Per Child) XO laptop is an example of these platforms which was designed as a tool to educate underprivileged children worldwide, with the goal of providing “one laptop per child”. The purpose of this study is to conduct a usability test on OLPC XO’s interface in order to find out the problems on the current interface and understand the effectiveness of icons and navigation.