User Experience
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UX Evaluation Methods
3E (Expressing Experiences and Emotions) can be used during field studies to collect information about users’ experiences and emotions in semi-structured way.
Developed by Lavie and Tractinsky; aesthetic quality in particular of websites. They conducted four studies in order to develop a measurement instrument of perceived web site aesthetics. Using exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses they found that users’ perceptions consist of two main dimensions, which were termed “classical aesthetics” and “expressive aesthetics”.
Affect Grid is a scale designed as a quick means of assessing affect along the dimensions of pleasure-displeasure and arousal-sleepiness.
During a field study, a participant wears a sensor that registers their physical states. User’s mobile phone logs the activities on the phone. The data from both sources is combined to scraps of person’s life. The scraps data is presented to the participant who can scribble their reflected thoughts on them.
Questionnaire for evaluating UX of mobile news journalism systes. Based on AttrakDiff but elaborated for the context.
Assess the user’s feelings about the system with a questionnaire. In AttrakDiff questionnaire, both hedonic and pragmatic dimensions of UX are studied with semantic differentials.
Let the users verbally tell about their experiences in a free story format.
Two friends explore a product/concept together and discuss about it (with or without a moderator). Videorecording is used especially when no moderator is present.
Experience sampling during field studies, so that the system detects the current context (e.g. location, time, nearby devices) and when the context fulfills predefined criteria, the system prompts the participant to report their experience.
One-to-one interviewing technique (qualitative data gathering) + quantitative data analysis technique. Preferably to be done in context.
Individual participants are invited to a controlled environment (not real context) to test e.g. colors or audio of the system. The target is to gain insights of design details that would be hard to test in real contexts (e.g. controlled lighting conditions, background noise).
DRM is a self-report method during a field study. Instead of reporting all use cases with the system each day to a diary, the participant picks e.g. 3 most impactful experiences each day to be reported.
The Differential Emotions Scale (DES) is a standardized instrument that reliably divides the individual’s description of emotion experience into validated, discrete categories of emotion. The DES was formulated to gouge the emotional state of individuals at that specific point in time when they are responding to the instrument.
e) Theoretical background: theories/models underlying the tool/method
Izard, 1972, 1977
Emo2 is an instrument for the measurement of emotion during product use. Most standard tools for the measurement of emotion provide overall rating along one or two dimensions or half a dozen basic emotions. Design-oriented tools (most notably PrEmo) overcome this limitation but are focused on sensory experience after static exposure to a product. We don’t know any tool designed to measure emotion over time, during interaction with a product, while providing rich feedback to designers. Self-confrontation allows the collection of extended data on the user experience without interfering with the interaction.
Emotional responses elicited by consumer products are difficult to verbalize because their nature is subtle (low intensity) and often miemotional response at the same time). As a result, these emotions are difficult to measure with verbal questionnaires. Instead of relying on the use of words, respondents can report their emotions with the use of cartoon drawings of facial expressions. The Emofaces can be used in internet surveys, formal interviews, and in qualitative interviews.
This method focuses on the known divergence between what the user does and what he says he does, between judgments and facts. The main problem is that we can not extract conclusions about the use of a product based on the opinions of the users. We are interested in the visceral and behavioural levels of the human conduct, and we revindicate that the reflective level, which is intellectually driven, must be also evaluated as another behavioural expression. It has to be interpreted from the analysis, but not assumed as if it was knowledge in its literal sense. The Emoscope groups together a set of techniques that aim to enrich the aspects of Emotional Usability in the processes of auditing the Experience of Use from a double approach: intervention on the product (EmoTools) and on the process of design (UseTherapist).
Emotion Sampling Device is a series of questions yielding to the emotion the user is experiencing as the result of an event. It is based on Cognitive Appraisal Theory (CAT) and Emotional Appraisal System. It asks about the causes of the emotion, rather than about the emotion itself, to avoid the typical problems of verbal assessment of emotions.