User Experience
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UX Evaluation Methods
AXE is a qualitative method that gives an initial perspective on the user experience for a product or a service. It is a method that involves singular users in an interview setting. The method builds on using visual stimuli to make evaluation participants imagine a use situation and to reveal their attitudes, use practices and valuations. AXE is both an evaluative method and a method for collecting suggestions for improvement. The results connect perceived product attributes with different dimensions of user experience.
The MAX is a post-use method for evaluating the general experience through cards with an avatar and a board. MAX can be applied after the use of mockups, prototypes, interactive systems, or any artifact that user can interact with. It has four categories, which are represented on the board by questions that guide the user at the evaluation: (a) Emotion: What did you feel when using it?, (b) Ease of Use:Was it easy to use?; (c) Usefulness: Was it useful? and (e) Intention to Use: Would you wish to use it?
Resonance testing is a method to validate product concepts againts a set of experiential goals. It is primarily intended for use with physical products.
To help you accomplish your Web goals, WAMMI (1) Measures user experience of your website based on visitors reactions using a 20 item-questionnaire; (2) Benchmarks your website relative to other websites in our international standardized database; (3) Generates objective data for your management in an easy-to-read hypertext report; (4) Analyses qualitative comments and reactions to your website from visitors; (5) Interprets quantitative and qualitative data to determine what to improve and how much to invest.
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.