Gloria tries the prototype

Gloria was given the pen to try out. Her initial response was somewhat indifferent. She didn't seem to react to the pens design and look as the other children did. However, when she realized it was no ordinary pen she was excited to give it a try and find out just what it can do. She was told how to use it but she didn't seem to pay attention to her parents, she was too eager to play with it. Hopefully she would figure it out herself once she got to work with it for a while.
She was trying to turn it on but couldn't figure out that the on/off button needed to be held pressed so her father told her how to do it. Once turned on the pen prompted her to speak a word to spell out. She spoke the word "house" and the pen repeated "house". After a slight delay the pen said "h" and displayed the letter "h" on the screen. Gloria then attempted to "draw" the letter "h". After lifting the pen it sounded the letter "o" which Gloria successfully wrote again. Upon reaching the letter "s" however, Gloria could not draw it correctly so the pen kept informing her that she drew it incorrectly. After 3 consecutive unsuccessful tries, Gloria got frustrated and threw the pen across the table and left eventually breaking the pen.

Gloria's experience with the pen was not a success. It showed us that, although built to be as simple as possible, the pen may seem complicated to certain individuals of the target age. Additionally, this experience showed us that, to someone who doesn't really want to learn and sees the product as a toy, the pen can be annoying and frustrating to use. However since the pen is marketed as a learning tool and not as a toy, this drawback cannot be considered serious.

Persona no. 3 - Gloria Mercury

Gloria Mercury is 6 years old. Her father, George, is a mechanic and her mother, Katherine, is an English teacher. She is quite smart for her age but is an average student because she doesn’t like doing school work much.

Her younger sister, Angela, is 5 years old and they fight all the time and break each other’s things. Her room is always untidy and her mother is always telling her to clean it and be nicer to her sister.

Her favourite colour is red. She likes playing outside in the street with her friends which is how she spends most of her afternoons. Her parents are always telling her to study more and be more polite but they both have to work a lot so Gloria isn’t always supervised. When she is at home she spends most of her time watching TV rather than doing her homework. When she grows up she wants to be an actress which she uses as an excuse to avoid studying.

Her mother is thinking about sending Gloria to private afternoon classes so she can catch up with her work but her father doesn’t agree. He believes their daughter should learn to study and be a good student by herself and tries to find ways of making her school work seem interesting.