Testing

I have done projects with and without testing, and the difference is striking. The projects that did not go through the testing process at least one time are weirdly similar to what I initially had in mind, and I think it means that I did not learn enough to rethink what I thought in the first place. The projects that included testing with either my population or peers show change and progress while addressing the initial goals more and more after each testing. Testing is essential as it teaches you to think like a scientist by rethinking your every design decision and constantly going back to your main objectives by identifying the crucial components of your design and continually learning about your population.

As in any other engineering endeavor, testing is important as it gives you a habit of rethinking your every decision. After identifying your objectives, you look into possible iterations to help you achieve your goals. Testing is essential as it allows you to look into those decisions as theories that you can test to see whether they hold true and thus are very connected to idea generation. While observing and seeing what went wrong, you get new insights and find new components that need troubleshooting.

Testing helps you identify crucial components in your design that are essential in helping you meet your learning objectives, only after which looking into other complementary pieces. This is important because if you find out what you thought would target your objectives and after testing you see that it did not, further complementary details are not as important if your goal will not be met.

It is also a chance to get to know your population of learners better and see what they think: sometimes, being in the same room with people you are designing for and seeing them interact with your design might be the most helpful practice to rethink your assumptions about them. In my project "Hug Bug," I was initially assuming that what I had designed would interest girls only, although I got to learn while engaging with my population that I also had male students interested in the experience of creating their own light up and speaking ladybugs. This made me rethink my assumptions about girls' interest in the experience only and leverage that by making it a more accessible activity for those interested with no constraints.

Testing is also the most low-cost investment in making sure you will not spend countless resources in the future to solve the problems that might have been avoided if initial testing before launching was done.