After eight years, and many small revisions over that time, the eSpark mood screen was looking a bit long-in-the-tooth. We partnered with Digital Promise to develop a new mood screen to accurately gather data on the relationship between students’ mood and learning progress.
I worked on the design and user testing while Digital Promise gathered and interpreted data that we had on student moods and achievement
This was the initial state of the mood screen design:
When I interviewed students to share prototype work and get their feedback, I would start the interview by asking students to draw me a picture of their current mood. It was a GREAT way to get started (and don’t worry – the student that drew the “sad” picture was actually just a little bit sad.)
This was an experiment to see how much I could simplify faces while still making something that would have an easily-understood emotion. I wanted to have the emotion emphasized over the design so that children wouldn’t be choosing based on the style.
I chose colors that corresponded to the Yale Mood Meter / Zones of Regulation since so many teachers and students that I spoke with were familiar with these colors and the moods that they represent.
Younger students (PK-1st Grade) Choose from a simplified set of 4 moods, to cut down on confusion from too many choices. I spoke with both teachers and students to make sure that this would be enough choices to be helpful and accurate.
Older students (Grade 3 and up) are given a second step to clarify their mood. This is both to acknowledge that older children can be more specific about their mood and help them learn more about what sorts of emotions fit into which quadrant of the mood meter.
