The role of non-visual aesthetics in consumer product evaluation

The present article addresses the impact of non-visual aesthetics of consumer products on the outcomes of usability tests such as perceived usability, user performance and user affect. Building on the research surrounding the impact of visual aesthetics in usability testing, the present work aimed to determine whether the same pattern of effects repeatedly found for visual aesthetics will also be found for non-visual aesthetics. A series of three experiments was carried out, all examining sound and touch as two prominent dimensions of non-visual aesthetics. To increase the robustness of the results, the experiments were conducted with three different consumer products, which were a smartphone (N=60), vacuum cleaner (N=60), and video racing game (N=60). Although manipulation checks confirmed that users generally experienced both sound and tactile product properties as intended by the experimental manipulation, in none of the studies the results showed an effect on perceived usability. Other outcome variables such as affect and performance showed a few selected effects. Overall, this suggests that findings from the field of visual aesthetics cannot be easily transferred to the domain of non-visual aesthetics. The findings of the present studies are discussed within the framework of Schifferstein’s work on sensory dominance.     

Understanding customers' holistic perception of switches in automotive human-machine interfaces

For successful new product development, it is necessary to understand the customers' holistic experience of the product beyond traditional task completion, and acceptance measures. This paper describes research in which ninety-eight UK owners of luxury saloons assessed the feel of push-switches in five luxury saloon cars both in context (in-car) and out of context (on a bench). A combination of hedonic data (i.e. a measure of ‘liking’), qualitative data and semantic differential data was collected. It was found that customers are clearly able to differentiate between switches based on the degree of liking for the samples' perceived haptic qualities, and that the assessment environment had a statistically significant effect, but that it was not universal. A factor analysis has shown that perceived characteristics of switch haptics can be explained by three independent factors defined as ‘Image’, ‘Build Quality’, and ‘Clickiness’. Preliminary steps have also been taken towards identifying whether existing theoretical frameworks for user experience may be applicable to automotive human-machine interfaces.     

The effects of design,size, and uniqueness of smartwatches: perspectives from current versus potential users

ABSTRACT

This study proposes design, uniqueness, and screen size as the key components of aesthetic appeal and investigates their role in influencing the use behaviour of current smartwatch users and purchase intentions of potential users. Hypotheses were tested using SmartPLS to analyze data collected from 377 current smartwatch users and 361 potential users. Design aesthetics was found to be the most important factor influencing the behavioural intentions of both user groups. Screen size and uniqueness had significant effects on current users’ use behaviour and potential users’ purchase intentions, respectively. Gender moderated the effect of design on the use behaviour of current smartwatch users, such that female users’ behaviour was more likely to be influenced than male users. A subsequent analysis on the moderating effect of brand revealed that the design aesthetics of smartwatches mattered more for Apple than Samsung in terms of promoting use behaviour.     

Aesthetics and preferences of web pages

The first impressions of web pages presented to users was investigated by using 13 different web pages, three types of scales and 18 participants. Multidimensional analysis of similarity and preference judgements found four important dimensions: beauty, mostly illustrations versus mostly text, overview and structure. Category scales indicated the existence of two factors related to formal aspects and to appeal of the objects, respectively. The best predictor for the overall judgement of the category scales was beauty. Property vector fitting of the multidimensional solutions with the category scales further indicated the importance of beauty for the preference space. Aspects of usability, product design and aesthetics are discussed.     

Understanding the triaging and fixing processes of long lived bugs

ContextBug fixing is an integral part of software development and maintenance. A large number of bugs often indicate poor software quality, since buggy behavior not only causes failures that may be costly but also has a detrimental effect on the user’s overall experience with the software product. The impact of long lived bugs can be even more critical since experiencing the same bug version after version can be particularly frustrating for user. While there are many studies that investigate factors affecting bug fixing time for entire bug repositories, to the best of our knowledge, none of these studies investigates the extent and reasons of long lived bugs.ObjectiveIn this paper, we investigate the triaging and fixing processes of long lived bugs so that we can identify the reasons for delay and improve the overall bug fixing process.MethodologyWe mine the bug repositories of popular open source projects, and analyze long lived bugs from five different perspectives: their proportion, severity, assignment, reasons, as well as the nature of fixes.ResultsOur study on seven open-source projects shows that there are a considerable number of long lived bugs in each system and over 90% of them adversely affect the user’s experience. The reasons for these long lived bugs are diverse including long assignment time, not understanding their importance in advance, etc. However, many bug-fixes were delayed without any specific reasons. Furthermore, 40% of long lived bugs need only small fixes.ConclusionOur overall results suggest that a significant number of long lived bugs may be minimized through careful triaging and prioritization if developers could predict their severity, change effort, and change impact in advance. We believe our results will help both developers and researchers better to understand factors behind delays, improve the overall bug fixing process, and investigate analytical approaches for prioritizing bugs based on bug severity as well as expected bug fixing effort.     

IT产品用户体验质量的模糊综合评价研究

提出了一种基于可用性测试的旨在对产品使用过程中的用户体验质量进行综合评价的模型。首先结合ISO9241-11有关可用性的定义,建立了包括人-机交互角度、用户角度和观察者角度的用户体验质量的360°指标体系模型;然后针对可用性概念的模糊性及其综合评估中的问题,应用层次分析法(AHP)确定了指标体系中相关因素的权重,并根据模糊隶属度函数对用户体验质量评价标准进行了模糊化处理;最后采用模糊评价方法对用户体验质量进行评价。实例表明用户体验质量的综合性评估模型可以有效地对用户体验质量进行综合性评价。     

The good enough revolution—the role of aesthetics in user experiences with digital artefacts

Technological development takes place at a rapid pace, and in recent years it has led to a growing output of artefacts and services with digital content, where availability and low price seem to be the main parameters for success. This trend has been labelled the ‘good enough’ revolution and has highlighted contemporary parameters for technological development. The present article presents this trend as a design movement that is characterised by introducing a new functionalism and challenging common perceptions that have emerged as a result of the twentieth-century design story about ‘high quality’ and ‘added value’ in product development. In addition, the article introduces the concept of aesthetics as the basis for a discussion about user experiences in contemporary digital artefacts, and argues that the good enough movement calls for a new understanding of aesthetics that springs from the role of digital artefacts in the user's social life and plays a role in relation to technologically oriented design development.     

Engineering aesthetics and aesthetic ergonomics: Theoretical foundations and a dual-process research methodology

Although industrial and product designers are keenly aware of the importance of design aesthetics, they make aesthetic design decisions largely on the basis of their intuitive judgments and ‘educated guesses’. Whilst ergonomics and human factors researchers have made great contributions to the safety, productivity, ease-of-use, and comfort of human-machine-environment systems, aesthetics is largely ignored as a topic of systematic scientific research in human factors and ergonomics. This article discusses the need for incorporating the aesthetics dimension in ergonomics and proposes the establishment of a new scientific and engineering discipline that we can call ‘engineering aesthetics’. This discipline addresses two major questions: How do we use engineering and scientific methods to study aesthetics concepts in general and design aesthetics in particular? How do we incorporate engineering and scientific methods in the aesthetic design and evaluation process? This article identifies two special features that distinguish aesthetic appraisal of products and system designs from aesthetic appreciation of art, and lays out a theoretical foundation as well as a dual-process research methodology for ‘engineering aesthetics’. Sample applications of this methodology are also described.     

基于团队态势感知的汽车 HMI 评测与设计方法

随着汽车智能化和网联化技术发展,汽车人机界面作为人与车的媒介,对驾驶员的用户体 验十分重要。为了通过优化人机界面来提高人与车的团队协作,对汽车人机界面评测与设计方法进行研究。 26 名驾驶员参与了以 FM 为多路径界面范式的驾驶模拟器评测。评测方法依据团队态势感知理论和用户体 验要素,构建包含驾驶指标、行为指标、主观指标的多维度评价体系,通过实验前分析任务阶段和通道, 进一步分析态势感知与用户体验要素的关联,实验后分析汽车人机界面的用户体验五层级数据结果,定位 出现设计问题,推导出相应的设计优化方向,最后得到设计优化的方案,能帮助优化汽车人机界面设计, 提高用户体验。     

A Study on User Experience of Automotive HUD Systems: Contexts of Information Use and User-Perceived Design Improvement Points

ABSTRACT

Despite three decades of use and related research efforts, how automotive HUD can be designed to best serve the driver is still an on-going research issue. For any human-machine system, studying the experiences of the existing users is an important first step towards design improvement and innovation. Nonetheless, surprisingly few studies have investigated the user experience of the existing commercial automotive HUD systems. In an effort to address the research gap, the current study conducted a user survey on the usage contexts and design improvement points of the existing automotive HUD systems focusing on eleven high-priority HUD information items selected among those displayed by the existing commercial HUD systems. A total of fifty-one drivers with significant prior HUD use experience participated. Design implications were derived from the survey responses. They may be useful for improving the existing automotive HUD systems in both the system functions and the interface/interaction design.     

Beyond the User Preferences: Aligning the Prototype Design to the Users’ Expectations

It is important for practitioners to conceptualize and tailor a prototype in tune with the users’ expectations in the early stages of the design life cycle so the modifications of the product design in advanced phases are kept to a minimum. According to user preference studies, the aesthetic and the usability of a system play an important role in the user appraisal and selection of a product. However, user preferences are just a part of the equation. The fact that a user prefers one product over the other does not mean that he or she would necessarily buy it. To understand the factors affecting the user's assessment of a product before the actual use of the product and the user's intention to purchase the product we conducted a study, reported in this article. Our study, a modification of a well‐known protocol, considers the users’ preferences of six simulated smartphones each with different combination of attributes. A sample consisting of 365 participants was involved in our analysis. Our results confirm that the main basis for the users’ pre‐use preferences is the aesthetics of the product, whereas our results suggest that the main basis for the user's intention to purchase are the expected usability of the product. Moreover, our analysis reveals that the personal characteristics of the users have different effects on both the users’ preferences and their intention to purchase a product. These results suggest that the designers should carefully balance the aesthetics and usability features of a prototype in tune with the users expectations. If the conceptualization of a product is done properly the redesign cycles after the usability testing can be reduced and speed up the process for releasing the product on the market.     

Automotive HMI design and participatory user involvement: review and perspectives

Abstract

Automotive human–machine interface (HMI) design is facing new challenges due to the technological advances of the last decades. The design process has to be adapted in order to address human factors and road safety challenges. It is now widely accepted that user involvement in the HMI design process is valuable. However, the current form of user involvement in industry remains at the stages of concept assessment and usability tests. Moreover, the literature in other fields (e.g. information systems) promotes a broader user involvement with participatory design (i.e. the user is fully involved in the development process). This article reviews the established benefits of participatory design and reveals perspectives for automotive HMI quality improvement in a cognitive ergonomic framework.

Practitioner Summary: Automotive HMI quality determines, in part, drivers’ ability to perform primary driving tasks while using in-vehicle devices. User involvement in the design process is a key point to contribute to HMI quality. This article reports the potential benefits of a broad involvement from drivers to meet automotive HMI design challenges.     

Evaluating interactive multimedia products for the home

Abstract

Multimedia information systems, supplied on CD-ROM, are fast becoming a popular consumer product. A huge and growing range of titles is available from high street computer, electrical goods and book shops. In an attempt to provide a compact set of evaluation criteria for these products, established methods in the fields of human-computer interaction (HCI), computer-assisted learning (CAL) and information retrieval are considered. The needs and desires of the home user are substantially different from those of the work place or education user. Observations from product use, and an interview study with home multimedia users, suggests that factors such as aesthetics, levels of interactivity and information content may be crucially important in user satisfaction. Factors such as interface clarity and consistency may be less important than in work place systems.     

Automated measurement of API usability: The API Concepts Framework

ContextUsability is an important software quality attribute for APIs. Unfortunately, measuring it is not an easy task since many things like experienced evaluators, suitable test users, and a functional product are needed. This makes existing usability measurement methods difficult to use, especially for non-professionals.ObjectiveTo make API usability measurement easier, an automated and objective measurement method would be needed. This article proposes such a method. Since it would be impossible to find and integrate all possible factors that influence API usability in one step, the main goal is to prove the feasibility of the introduced approach, and to define an extensible framework so that additional factors can easily be defined and added later.MethodA literature review is conducted to find potential factors influencing API usability. From these factors, a selected few are investigated more closely with usability studies. The statistically evaluated results from these studies are used to define specific elements of the introduced framework. Further, the influence of the user as a critical factor for the framework’s feasibility is evaluated.ResultsThe API Concepts Framework is defined, with an extensible structure based on concepts that represent the user’s actions, measurable properties that define what influences the usability of these concepts, and learning effects that represent the influence of the user’s experience. A comparison of values calculated by the framework with user studies shows promising results.ConclusionIt is concluded that the introduced approach is feasible and provides useful results for evaluating API usability. The extensible framework easily allows to add new concepts and measurable properties in the future.     

Modeling user experience: A case study on a mobile device

User experience (UX) consists of all aspects of interactions between a user and a product. Recently, many studies have been conducted to define the UX concept, but few studies have attempted to quantify UX. This paper proposed quantification models that integrate major elements of UX into a single index. A variety of models were proposed and evaluated including compensatory (i.e. simple linear, polynomial and S-shaped value) and non-compensatory (i.e. conjunctive and disjunctive) models. A case study with a commercial tablet PC was conducted in which a total of 26 subjects participated in a laboratory environment. Each participant performed a pretest ensuring the ability to make ratio judgments and then evaluated predefined dimensions with the modified magnitude estimation procedure. A total of 22 hierarchical dimensions were evaluated such as overall UX, its elements (i.e. usability, affect and user value) and sub-elements. Both compensatory and non-compensatory models had high performance in terms of goodness of fit. The results of this study are expected to help product or service designers develop indices representing an overall UX value.Relevance to industryThis study proposed quantification models that aggregate elements of UX. Although the UX index has been controversial, the single value developed by the models can be expected to help decision-makers understand about products or services intuitively.     

Review Article A review of multi-channel indices of class separability

Abstract

An increasingly common question arising in processing digital multi-channel data from spacecraft and aircraft scanner systems is “which channels contain the best information to separate the classes of interest to the user?”. This may be to identify the best single channel for separating classes in a black and white photographic or line printer output product, or the best three channels for a colour photographic presentation of the data, or the best ‘n’ channels to enter into a classification (being mindful of the ‘trade off’ between improved sub-class separability and increasing usage of computer space and time resources). The only valid way to approach separability using more than one channel is to consider it in multi-channel space utilizing the inter-channel relationship terms. Having defined the classes using some form of hierarchical ordering approach, such as that proposed by Anderson et al. (1972), the user may compile the statistical profiles of the classes of interest from the sensor multi-channel data. Based on these statistics a number of multi-channel separability indices may be derived. Each of these indices quantifies, on the basis of the user-defined multi-channel statistics, the degree of inter-class separability the user can expect as a function of subsets of channels drawn from the overall sensor channel set. This review considers some of the more common multi-channel indices of separability and presents the links between them. Their various properties, and some limitations, are also presented as is an operational approach to their use.     

The Investigation of E-Learning System Design Quality on Usage Intention

ABSTRACT

A well-designed product increases customer value and leads to repeat usage. However, studies on the impact of website quality on customer usage fail to distinguish website competence from website capability, ignoring that website quality performance has impacts on other website quality attributes. We gather data from 314 undergraduate students and apply partial least square method to examine the design quality mechanisms and other factors that influence users’ experience. Our results indicate that offering personalized products or services is an important enabler toward enhancing users’ attitude and usage intention. Particularly, for IS education in the format of e-learning, our results suggest firms developing textbook technology platforms primarily focus on creating superior quality designs leading to capabilities that enhance user customization. The customization experience will lead to better satisfaction via both perceived usefulness and perceived ease-of-use.     

A machine learning-based method for the large-scale evaluation of the qualities of the urban environment

Given the present size of modern cities, it is beyond the perceptual capacity of most people to develop a good knowledge about the qualities of the urban space at every street corner. Correspondingly, for planners, it is also difficult to accurately answer questions such as ‘where the quality of the physical environment is the most dilapidated in the city that regeneration should be given first consideration’ and ‘in fast urbanising cities, how is the city appearance changing’. To address this issue, in the present study, we present a computer vision method that contains three machine learning models for the large-scale and automatic evaluation on the qualities of the urban environment by leveraging state-of-the-art machine learning techniques and wide-coverage street view images. From various physical qualities that have been identified by previous research to be important for the urban visual experience, we choose two key qualities, the construction and maintenance quality of building facade and the continuity of street wall, to be measured in this research. To test the validity of the proposed method, we compare the machine scores with public rating scores collected on-site from 752 passers-by at 56 locations in the city. We show that the machine learning models can produce a medium-to-good estimation of people's real experience, and the modelling results can be applied in many ways by researchers, planners and local residents.     

一种网页动态色设计效果的评估方法

随着网民审美需求的提升,越来越多的动态色彩效果被应用到网站UI设计中。毋庸置疑,丰富的色彩效果能带来良好的视觉体验。然而,过多或不恰当的使用动态色却适得其反。因而如何把握动态色设计的度是一个值得探讨的问题。文章定义了动态色的涵义及分类,总结了动态色可用性效果评价的维度和标准。基于模糊综合评价法,提出了一种动态色可用性效果的评估方法。该方法能展示用户对网站动态色效果的总体评估情况,并能准确揭示存在的问题以便于改进。     

The influence of affordances on user preferences for multimedia language learning applications

This study investigates the influence of sensory and cognitive affordances on the user experience of mobile devices for multimedia language learning applications. A primarily audio-based language learning application – ‘Vowel Trainer’, was chosen against a comparison, text and picture-based language learning application – ‘Learn English for Taxi Drivers’. Impressions of the two applications were assessed on two different devices that have virtually the same interface and identical sound output (when headphones are used), but differ in physical size: the iPhone and the iPad. A mixed design was chosen, with native language as a group factor and device type (iPad vs. iPhone) and language application type (audio vs. video) as within groups factors. Assessments of sensory and cognitive affordances were made, along with measurement of learner preferences of each application. Data from 41 participants (21 native English speakers, 20 non-native English speakers) were analysed, revealing device differences in both audio and visual subjective quality ratings, despite only visual quality being affected by the device's physical limitations. We suggest that sensory affordances (indexed by subjective quality) are not simply a function of physical limitations, but are heavily influenced by context. The implications for developing design guidelines for language learning and other multimedia applications are discussed.