A Smiley Face Icon Creator for Evaluating Emotion with Children

Abstract

In designing an interactive system for children, it is imperative to hear the opinions and emotions of children themselves. However, it can be challenging to investigate their emotions because of their limited abilities of expression. Children are still in the process of developing their literacy and communication skills. The smiley face Likert scale is a survey method that utilizes face icons to express emotion regardless of the subject's literacy. The method typically uses five to seven face icons for a survey. However, this limited number of face icons restricts the measurement of children's emotions in terms of detail. This paper proposes a novel survey method that introduces the visual analog scale into the smiley face Likert scale. We have developed a tool that would allow children to change the styles of their eyebrows and mouth continuously. This method would also allow investigators to understand their subjects' emotions in detail. Through our preliminary study, we have confirmed that children could express emotion using our face icons to an extent similar to that of adults.