## 3 The Smart Angel Tests
### Preparation Phase  
Seven young people between the age of 16 and 18 have then been identified for the first tests with the final users. They are about to start their adult life and are acquiring their independence. These people are undergoing a preparation phase, in which they are developing the basic skills needed for later  
Figure 2: Smart Angel: planning of the tests.  
independence. The Serious Games have been used as a tool to support the acquisition of some basic skills, but not all the involved users did actually take advantage from them: two of them had difficulty with the virtual reality head set and either had sickness or refused to use it. Nevertheless, the other users have shown a deep interest in the games, have used them a lot and have shown to get better in their performance.  
The data collected from the test has already been used to better configure the games making the user interaction easier. The mechanism used to get the users' forward motion had to be calibrated in order to filter small movements and recognize intentional movements only. Some orientation problems are always felt when the headset is taken off. In order to help the player not to feel lost in space, the game always takes place in small area, which is limited by tables on which the player can hold in order not to lose his balance.  
Data collected from the very first tests with two Serious Games is represented in Figure 3. The two games that had been tested at that point were related to the ability to safely cross the road and to understanding simple road directions. Both games are organized in \"missions\", which are made of one or more \"tasks\". Therefore, for example, a mission could be \"reach the church\" and it is made of the following three tasks: \"turn right\", \"go to the end of the road and turn left\", \"go straight at the traffic light\".  
Each game session has always taken place with the tutors, who know the involved end users personally and deeply so they can understand the end users' reactions. Since the users were willing to play the games, but they tended to get over excited after a certain time of play, the tutors decided when it was time to end each play session.  
The game automatically collected usage data that was then analysed separately. In particular, we considered the average time needed to complete the given tasks, the length of the whole session and the number of tasks completed.  
In the analysis we found that two people have data that was much different from all the others, they had longer answer times and completed fewer tasks. In particular, user 6 refused to use the headset because he was very uncomfortable, he only played very few tasks and then wanted to end the play session. He did not participate in the following sessions. User 2 was at ease during the first session and performed well, while in the second play session she felt sick and had to leave the virtual world almost immediately.  
After taking these two users out, we analysed the collected data with respect to the average duration of the sessions and the number of completed missions. This has been very useful because it gave us the needed information to write the guidelines for play. In particular, we found that sessions had to be kept short, we suggest no more than 5 to 8 min. Furthermore, the number of scenes that have actually been played gave us useful information with respect to the needed global number of available missions to complete.  
A deeper analysis of all the game related collected data will be performed shortly. The tests have been interrupted due to the summer holidays and therefore the lack of availability of the end users. In October, the tests have been resumed and another group of people is now involved in using the games.