Turbo Typing is a digital typing training service for primary school children, developed for use in a six month academic study deployed across five schools.
I conducted end-to-end user research to ensure the service could be used reliably in real classroom settings without usability or accessibility issues undermining the study.
This case study focuses on an early research phase, using observational prototype testing with children to evaluate task understanding and independent use, prior to co-design work with educators.
After establishing that the problem space was relevant, the main uncertainty became whether children could actually use and understand the typing tasks well enough for the academic study to run as intended.
If task instructions or early progression caused confusion or frustration, sustained use in classrooms would be unlikely and the study outcomes would be compromised.
This phase existed to reduce that delivery risk before investing further effort in refinement or stakeholder-led solution design.
This phase involved approximately 200 children and young people aged 8 to 16, across multiple events, supported at times by family members or caregivers.
Children were the direct users of the service and the only group able to demonstrate whether the tasks were understandable in practice.
Testing took place at public engagement events such as science festivals and a children’s museum, providing noisy, high distraction settings similar to classrooms.
Testing took place in public, high‑distraction environments, allowing observation of natural behaviour rather than idealised use.
I led this phase independently, with responsibility for research, design, and development.
I designed and conducted observational testing with children and families, synthesised patterns across sessions, and identified where task understanding or accessibility risks were most likely to affect use.
Having full decision-making authority allowed me to translate research insight immediately into changes, rather than treated as recommendations for others to interpret.
Observation was the primary method for this phase, as children were the direct users and self-report would not reliably surface confusion or misunderstanding at this age.
I tested iterative versions of the tasks with children aged 8 to 16 at public engagement events, observing how they navigated instructions, responded to feedback, and persisted through difficulty in noisy, high distraction environments similar to classrooms.
This was supported by brief on-site surveys and short conversations with children and caregivers to capture immediate reactions and accessibility concerns, allowing rapid refinement between sessions.
Across sessions, I synthesised findings in a pattern based way, looking for issues that recurred consistently enough to pose a delivery risk rather than coding for exhaustive themes. The following patterns emerged across settings and age groups, and were consistent enough to act on.
Children frequently skimmed or skipped instructional text, leading to misunderstandings about task goals and inconsistent performance.
Some tasks were too challenging at the start, resulting in frustration before children had built confidence or familiarity with the interaction.