A Usability Testing of Chinese Character Writing System for Foreign Learners

Currently, the study of Chinese has become increasingly popular in the world. However, not every non-native Chinese speaker learning Chinese can have formal guidance from qualified instructors. Xi-Zi-e-Bi-Tong (習字e筆通) is one of the systems for writing Chinese characters and is used by the Ministry of Education’s E-innovation School and E-bag Experimental Teaching Program in Taiwan. It was developed for native Chinese speaking elementary school students. However, foreign learners come from a variety of cultural backgrounds and ages, so this study looks at the efficacy of this system for these types of students. As a case study, this research performed a usability testing with this system in order to identify what typical usability problems may exist in off-the-shelf products for foreign learners. The usability testing is with thinking aloud, in order to avoid the frustration of participants during tasks, the combination of coaching method to provide help appropriately. The subjects for this research were six foreign students, they came from different cultural backgrounds and all were unfamiliar with Chinese. It was hoped that testing this level of learners would make it easier to ascertain the usability problems of the system. Each was given six tasks associated with system manipulation that was related to the research purpose, and the tasks were designed in accordance with the instructions. When they had completed all the tasks, in order to measure the satisfaction of the system, they were asked to immediately fill out a questionnaire on user interaction satisfaction (QUIS). The problems they encountered in the test can be categorized, in accordance to the interactive design principles and concepts, into: mental models, visibility, feedback, and control. This study can be used as a reference for the redesigning of a program to teach the writing of Chinese characters.