A Textual Feedback Tool for Empowering Participants in Usability and UX Evaluations

The usability movement has historically always sought to empower end-users of computers so that they understand what is happening and can control the outcome. In this article, we develop and evaluate a “Textual Feedback” tool for usability and user experience (UX) evaluation that can be used to empower well-educated but low-status users in UX evaluations in countries and contexts with high power distances. The proposed tool contributes to the Human–Computer Interaction (HCI) community’s pool of localized UX evaluation tools. We evaluate the tool with 40 users from two socio-economic groups in real-life UX usability evaluations settings in Malaysia. The results indicate that the Textual Feedback tool may help participants to give their thoughts in UX evaluation in high power distance contexts. In particular, the Textual Feedback tool helps high status females and low status males express more UX problems than they can with traditional concurrent think aloud (CTA) alone. We found that classic concurrent think aloud UX evaluation works fine in high power contexts, but only with the addition of Textual Feedback to mitigate the effects of socio-economic status in certain user groups. We suggest that future research on UX evaluation look more into how to empower certain user groups, such as low status female users, in UX evaluations done in high power distance contexts.     

Design-inclusive UX research: design as a part of doing user experience research

Since the third wave in human–computer interaction (HCI), research on user experience (UX) has gained momentum within the HCI community. The focus has shifted from systematic usability requirements and measures towards guidance on designing for experiences. This is a big change, since design has traditionally not played a large role in HCI research. Yet, the literature addressing this shift in focus is very limited. We believe that the field of UX research can learn from a field where design and experiential aspects have always been important: design research. In this article, we discuss why design is needed in UX research and how research that includes design as a part of research can support and advance UX design practice. We do this by investigating types of design-inclusive UX research and by learning from real-life cases of UX-related design research. We report the results of an interview study with 41 researchers in three academic research units where design research meets UX research. Based on our interview findings, and building on existing literature, we describe the different roles design can play in research projects. We also report how design research results can inform designing for experience methodologically or by providing new knowledge on UX. The results are presented in a structured palette that can help UX researchers reflect and focus more on design in their research projects, thereby tackling experience design challenges in their own research.     

An investigation of handheld device use by older adults with age-related macular degeneration

This study investigates factors affecting handheld human - computer interaction (HCI) for older adults with Age-related Macular Degeneration (AMD). This is largely an uncharted territory, as empirical investigations of HCI concerning users with visual dysfunction and/or older adults have focused primarily on desktop computers. For this study, participants with AMD and visually healthy controls used a handheld computer to search, select and manipulate familiar playing card icons under varied icon set sizes, inter-icon spacing and auditory feedback conditions. While all participants demonstrated a high rate of task completion, linear regression revealed several relationships between task efficiency and the interface, user characteristics and ocular factors. Two ocular measures, severity of AMD and contrast sensitivity, were found to be highly predictive of efficiency. The outcomes of this work reveal that users with visual impairments can effectively interact with graphical user interfaces on small displays in the presence of low-cost, easily implemented design interventions. Furthermore, results demonstrate that the detrimental influence of AMD and contrast sensitivity on handheld technology interaction can be offset by such interventions. This study presents a rich data set and is intended to inspire future work characterizing and modeling the interactions of individuals with visual impairments with non-traditional information technology platforms and contexts.     

面向动态交互场景的计算模型

随着人机交互技术不断发展,包含动态内容的交互系统,如虚拟/增强/混合现实、视频监控系统等,逐渐占据主要地位.面向动态交互场景的计算模型受到了越来越多的关注,大量的计算模型被提出,加强了人们对动态用户界面的认识和理解.然而,现阶段,面向动态交互场景的计算模型研究仍在问题复杂度、解释性、交互底层机制描述上存在诸多问题,极大...     

Understanding Usability and User Experience of Web-Based 3D Graphics Technology

As Web-based interactive 3D graphics (Web 3D), popularly referred to as Virtual Reality, continue to become more affordable, research and development groups in various fields have been adopting Web 3D technology. In addition to simulation of 3D content, the ability to instantly display alternative looks has been recognized as an innovative way to improve communication in such fields as product design, architecture, and e-commerce. Despite substantial adoption of Web 3D, how and how much the technology benefits target users as well as the providers who choose to adapt the Web 3D technology are not well understood. Previous research has established that interactive 3D graphics provide users with unique human–computer interaction (HCI). However, little is known about how users experience the Web 3D graphics technology and how user–system interaction contributes to system usability. The purpose of this study is to build new knowledge of the user experience with interactive-3D graphics systems used for product demonstration. By testing the impact of the technology on the user–system interaction and usability and comparing this impact with that of conventional two-dimensional (2D) graphics, this study tries to better understand the Web 3D technology from an interdisciplinary view of technology acceptance, sense of presence, and HCI. The study investigated how system usability is affected by HCI in the context of a furniture-style preference survey. The results of the study display the clear advantage for Web 3D for usability and show that perceived usefulness and sense of presence both mediate the effect of the technology treatment on the usability outcomes. The contribution of this study is that it includes empirical data to show how Web 3D benefits users when adopted in the context of a product demonstration and how the advantage is obtained through the user's interaction with the Web 3D technology.     

Usability and user experience of medical devices: An overview of the current state,analysis methodologies,and future challenges

Improvements to the reliability and safety of medical devices are vital for healthcare systems. It is necessary to consider the user experience (UX) of patients and healthcare professionals at all the development stages of medical devices. Ergonomic design principles can also reduce the cost of medical device production. This study is a multilateral analytical literature review of UX and usability issues in healthcare and medical device design. The total number of literature sources presented is n = 88. The literature sources are classified according to the difference between UX and usability for various target products and services, including healthcare. The literature is reviewed with a focus on human-oriented aspects. This includes medical technology and device design, which are dependent on the user type, medical device scope, and area of use. A review of key medical device standards and regulation documents is presented. The main analysis methodologies for the UX and their advantages and disadvantages are discussed. The future challenges in healthcare and medical ergonomics are briefly highlighted. Above all, this study tried to examine the difference between usability and UX of general products and those of medical devices through the review of existing literature. Even standards do not reflect this well and need to be considered based on further research in academia and industry.Relevance to industryThe obtained results will help medical-device designers and healthcare professionals understand the main medical-research trends and improve the design process. Additionally, they will be helpful for increasing the satisfaction level among medical-device users and reducing user risks.     

Attitudes towards user experience (UX) measurement

User experience (UX), as a recently established research area, is still haunted by the challenges of defining the scope of UX in general and operationalising experiential qualities in particular. To explore the basic question whether UX constructs are measurable, we conducted semi-structured interviews with 10 UX researchers from academia and one UX practitioner from the industry where a set of questions in relation to UX measurement were explored (Study 1). The interviewees expressed scepticism as well as ambivalence towards UX measures and shared anecdotes related to such measures in different contexts. Interestingly, the results suggested that design-oriented UX professionals tended to be sceptical about UX measurement. To examine whether such an attitude prevailed in the HCI community, we conducted a survey – UX Measurement Attitudes Survey (UXMAS) – with essentially the same set of 13 questions used in the interviews (Study 2). Specifically, participants were asked to rate a set of five statements to assess their attitude towards UX measurement, to identify (non)measurable experiential qualities with justifications, and to discuss the topic from the theoretical, methodological and practical perspectives. The survey was implemented in a paper-based and an online format. Altogether, 367 responses were received; 170 of them were valid and analysed. The survey provided empirical evidence on this issue as a baseline for progress in UX measurement. Overall, the survey results indicated that the attitude towards UX measurement was more positive than that identified in the interviews, and there were nuanced views on details of UX measurement. Implications for enhancing the acceptance of UX measures and the interplay between UX evaluation and system development are drawn: UX modelling grounded in theories to link experiential qualities with outcomes; the development of UX measurement tools with good measurement properties, and education within the HCI community to disseminate validated models, and measurement tools as well as their successful applications. Mutual recognition of the value of objective measures and subjective accounts of user experience can enhance the maturity of this area.     

A psychometric user experience model based on fuzzy measure approaches

User experience (UX) is considered a key quality of interactive products in today’s competitive mass markets and is of growing interest in both academia and industry. UX concerns the encounters a user has while interacting with products, systems, and services. It is ubiquitous, omnipresent, and dynamic in nature, referring to the non-quantifiable, subjective, affective-based, and context-dependent processes. UX is difficult for researchers to objectively and uniformly measure as it involves complex human perceptual interpretations of experiential responses with a certain degree of uncertainty, imprecision, and vagueness. Based on the user experience questionnaire (UEQ), this paper presents a psychometric UX model using fuzzy measure approaches, the purpose of which is to develop a metric for quantitative assessment of certain product UXs through a user experience index (UXI). This model enables researchers to understand users’ perceptions of the interactions that constitute qualities of using a specific product. An empirical study concerning the episodic UX measures of using a set of touch mice was conducted to verify the applicability and effectiveness of the proposed UX model. The theoretical and practical implications of the UX model are also discussed.     

Analyzing the Role of Interactivity in User Experience

An experimental investigation into the role of interaction in user experience (UX) with a controlled manipulation of interactivity features (e.g., avatars, interactive video) in a university information website is reported. The more interactive version had better affect and hedonic ratings, even though its perceived usability was worse. Analysis of qualitative data showed users were attracted to the interactive features, although they complained about poor usability. The results of the experiments are discussed to consider the role of interactivity in UX and the differences between users’ quantitative judgments of UX and their comments on interactive features, which reveal different perspectives.     

Toward overcoming culture, skill and situation hurdles in Human-Computer Interaction

This paper proposes a new effective strategy for designing and implementing interactive systems overcoming culture, skill and situation hurdles in Human-Computer Interaction (HCI). The strategy to identify and reduce these hurdles is developed in the framework of a methodology based on a recently introduced model of HCI, and exploits the technological innovations of XML (Extensible Markup Language). HCI is modelled as a cyclic process in which the user and the interactive system communicate by materializing and interpreting a sequence of messages. The interaction process is formalized by specifying both the physical message appearance and the computational aspect of the interaction. This formalization allows the adoption of notation traditionally adopted by users in their workplaces as the starting point of the interactive system design. In this way, the human–system interaction language takes into account the users’ culture. Moreover, the methodology permits user representatives to build a hierarchy of systems progressively adapted to users’ situations, skills and habits, according to the work organization in the domain considered. The strategy is proved to be effective by describing how to implement it using BANCO (Browsing Adaptive Network for Changing user Operativity), a feasibility prototype based on XML, which allows the hierarchy implementation and system adaptations. Several examples from an environmental case under study are used throughout the paper to illustrate the methodology and the effectiveness of the technology adopted. Published online: 4 June 2002     

Affectemes and allaffects: a novel approach to coding user emotional expression during interactive experiences

The potential importance of human affect during human - computer interaction (HCI) is becoming increasingly well recognised. However, measuring and analysing affective behaviour is problematic. Physiological indicators reveal only some, sometimes ambiguous information. Video analysis and existing coding schemes are notoriously lengthy and complex, and examine only certain aspects of affect. This paper describes the development of a practical methodology to assess user affect, as displayed by emotional expressions. Interaction analysis techniques were used to identify discrete affective messages 'affectemes' and their components. This paper explains the rationale for this approach and demonstrates how it can be applied in practice. Preliminary evidence for its efficacy and reliability is also presented.     

Optimization of user experience in interaction design through a Taguchi‐based hybrid approach

User experience (UX), which encompasses all aspects of a user’s interaction with an interactive product, has been recognized as central to interaction design. This paper proposes a Taguchi‐based hybrid approach to realize the optimal UX design. In this approach, design analysis is first used to identify design patterns and UX characteristics. According to the results, a Taguchi experiment is conducted and the signal‐to‐noise ratios are computed. Subsequently, the preference weights for the UX characteristics are obtained by using analytical hierarchy process‐based group decision making. A multiperformance characteristic index is then defined based on the gray relational grade (GRG) obtained through gray relational analysis. On the basis of the GRG, the optimal design can be obtained. A mobile health application design was used to demonstrate the proposed approach. The results show that this approach can effectively enhance UX quality and be used as a universal design approach for optimizing UX.     

UX Curve: A method for evaluating long-term user experience

The goal of user experience design in industry is to improve customer satisfaction and loyalty through the utility, ease of use, and pleasure provided in the interaction with a product. So far, user experience studies have mostly focused on short-term evaluations and consequently on aspects relating to the initial adoption of new product designs. Nevertheless, the relationship between the user and the product evolves over long periods of time and the relevance of prolonged use for market success has been recently highlighted. In this paper, we argue for the cost-effective elicitation of longitudinal user experience data. We propose a method called the “UX Curve” which aims at assisting users in retrospectively reporting how and why their experience with a product has changed over time. The usefulness of the UX Curve method was assessed in a qualitative study with 20 mobile phone users. In particular, we investigated how users’ specific memories of their experiences with their mobile phones guide their behavior and their willingness to recommend the product to others. The results suggest that the UX Curve method enables users and researchers to determine the quality of long-term user experience and the influences that improve user experience over time or cause it to deteriorate. The method provided rich qualitative data and we found that an improving trend of perceived attractiveness of mobile phones was related to user satisfaction and willingness to recommend their phone to friends. This highlights that sustaining perceived attractiveness can be a differentiating factor in the user acceptance of personal interactive products such as mobile phones. The study suggests that the proposed method can be used as a straightforward tool for understanding the reasons why user experience improves or worsens in long-term product use and how these reasons relate to customer loyalty.     

Berlin Brain–Computer Interface—The HCI communication channel for discovery

The investigation of innovative Human–Computer Interfaces (HCI) provides a challenge for future interaction research and development. Brain–Computer Interfaces (BCIs) exploit the ability of human communication and control bypassing the classical neuromuscular communication channels. In general, BCIs offer a possibility of communication for people with severe neuromuscular disorders, such as amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) or complete paralysis of all extremities due to high spinal cord injury. Beyond medical applications, a BCI conjunction with exciting multimedia applications, e.g., a dexterity discovery, could define a new level of control possibilities also for healthy customers decoding information directly from the user's brain, as reflected in EEG signals which are recorded non-invasively from the scalp.This contribution introduces the Berlin Brain–Computer Interface (BBCI) and presents set-ups where the user is provided with intuitive control strategies in plausible interactive bio-feedback applications. Yet at its beginning, BBCI thus adds a new dimension in HCI research by offering the user an additional and independent communication channel based on brain activity only. Successful experiments already yielded inspiring proofs-of-concept. A diversity of interactive application models, say computer games, and their specific intuitive control strategies are now open for BCI research aiming at a further speed up of user adaptation and increase of learning success and transfer bit rates.BBCI is a complex distributed software system that can be run on several communicating computers responsible for (i) the signal acquisition, (ii) the data processing and (iii) the feedback application. Developing a BCI system, special attention must be paid to the design of the feedback application that serves as the HCI unit. This should provide the user with the information about her/his brain activity in a way that is intuitively intelligible. Exciting discovery applications qualify perfectly for this role. However, most of these applications incorporate control strategies that are developed especially for the control with haptic devices, e.g., joystick, keyboard or mouse. Therefore, novel control strategies should be developed for this purpose that (i) allow the user to incorporate additional information for the control of animated objects and (ii) do not frustrate the user in the case of a misclassification of the decoded brain signal.BCIs are able to decode different information types from the user's brain activity, such as sensory perception or motor intentions and imaginations, movement preparations, levels of stress, workload or task-related idling. All of these diverse brain signals can be incorporated in an exciting discovery scenario. Modern HCI research and development technologies can provide BCI researchers with the know-how about interactive feedback applications and corresponding control strategies.     

A Systematic Mapping Study of HCI Practice Research

ABSTRACT

Human–computer interaction (HCI) practice has emerged as a research domain in the HCI field and is growing. The need to transfer HCI practices to the industry began significantly with the works of Nielsen on usability engineering. To date, methods and techniques for designing, evaluating, and implementing interactive systems for human use have continued to emerge. It is, therefore, justified to conduct a systematic mapping study to determine the landscape of HCI practice research. A Systematic Mapping Study method was used to map 142 studies according to research type, topic, and contribution. These were then analyzed to determine an overview of HCI practice research. The objective was to analyze studies on HCI practice and present prominent issues that characterize the HCI practice research landscape. Second, to identify pressing challenges regarding HCI practices in software/systems development companies. The results show that HCI practice research has steadily increased since 2012. The majority of the studies explored focused on evaluation research that largely contributed to the evaluation methods or processes. Most of the studies were on design tools and techniques, design methods and contexts, design work and organizational culture, and collaboration and team communication. Interviews, case studies, and survey methods have been prominently used as research methods. HCI techniques are mostly used during the initial phase of development and during evaluation. HCI practice challenges in companies are mostly process-related and on performance of usability and user experience activities. The major challenge seems to be to find a way to collect and incorporate user feedback in a timely manner, especially in agile processes. There are areas identified in this study as needing more research.     

The dynamics of film-induced affect and its effect on the interaction with tablet PCs

Affective states have become a crucial part of human–computer interaction research. Many studies have analysed the impact of the technology on the users' affective states as a part of what is called user experience (UX). We consider the impact of antecedent affective states on interaction with a technological artefact. We induced positive and negative affective states using film clips. Then we analysed the impact of affects on the subsequent interaction with a tablet PC. Results show that positive and negative affective states have different emotional activation patterns. Positive affect was more sensitive for changes in tasks and experimental setting. In addition, these activation patterns affected behaviour for a short time only. These findings are discussed against the background of research into UX dynamics, dynamics of affect, and user-centred design research.     

Mobility as involvement: on the role of involvement in the design of mobile support systems for industrial application

Traditional human–computer interaction (HCI) allowed researchers and practitioners to share and rely on the ‘five E’s’ of usability, the principle that interactive systems should be designed to be effective, efficient, engaging, error tolerant, and easy to learn. A recent trend in HCI, however, is that academic researchers as well as practitioners are becoming increasingly interested in user experiences, i.e., understanding and designing for relationships between users and artifacts that are for instance affective, engaging, fun, playable, sociable, creative, involving, meaningful, exciting, ambiguous, and curious. In this paper, it is argued that built into this shift in perspective there is a concurrent shift in accountability that is drawing attention to a number of ethical, moral, social, cultural, and political issues that have been traditionally de-emphasized in a field of research guided by usability concerns. Not surprisingly, this shift in accountability has also received scarce attention in HCI. To be able to find any answers to the question of what makes a good user experience, the field of HCI needs to develop a philosophy of technology. One building block for such a philosophy of technology in HCI is presented. Albert Borgmann argues that we need to be cautious and rethink the relationship as well as the often-assumed correspondence between what we consider useful and what we think of as good in technology. This junction—that some technologies may be both useful and good, while some technologies that are useful for some purposes might also be harmful, less good, in a broader context—is at the heart of Borgmann’s understanding of technology. Borgmann’s notion of the device paradigm is a valuable contribution to HCI as it points out that we are increasingly experiencing the world with, through, and by information technologies and that most of these technologies tend to be designed to provide commodities that effortlessly grant our wishes without demanding anything in return, such as patience, skills, or effort. This paper argues that Borgmann’s work is relevant and makes a valuable contribution to HCI in at least two ways: first, as a different way of seeing that raises important social, cultural, ethical, and moral issues from which contemporary HCI cannot escape; and second, as providing guidance as to how specific values might be incorporated into the design of interactive systems that foster engagement with reality.     

User experience of museum technologies: the phenomenological scales

Museums increasingly rely on technology as a guarantee of enhanced visitor experience. However, both in Information Systems and Museology research, little attention has been paid to the evaluation of user experience (UX) with technologies in cultural heritage environments. This paper reports research in this area that uses a framework of interpretive archaeology and phenomenology. Users of museum technologies are studied to determine whether the framework's criteria correspond to visitor expectations and can be met by Information Technologies (IT). Our epistemology is methodologically independent and by using a multi-methodological approach, mixing both qualitative and quantitative approaches, it is consistent with the original spirit of the theory of understanding. The findings confirm the importance of phenomenology and post-phenomenology as a reference to assess IT UX in museums. In addition, our field study indicates that technologies available in museums – namely audio guides, interactive kiosks and computers – contribute positively to an experience of the past.     

Research Issues in Smart Vehicles and Elderly Drivers: A Literature Review

This article reviewed both studies on general smart car technologies and human–computer interaction (HCI)/human–vehicle interaction studies that were published in journals and conferences so that the current status of research can be identified and future research directions can be suggested. Furthermore, previous studies on elderly drivers were reviewed, as these drivers could be the most vulnerable social group in terms of new technology acceptance. A total of 257 articles for HCI research and 45 articles for elderly drivers were selected and reviewed from 11,267 collected articles (2010–2014). According to the results, most articles were mainly related to safety and adaptive features (e.g., driver’s state recognition, vehicle surrounding monitoring, driver action-suggestion), and infotainment research in terms of HCI (e.g., information technology devices–vehicle interaction, vehicle–vehicle interaction) was relatively insufficient despite its high research demand. According to the results of the literature review and technological trends analysis based on previous technical road maps, from HCI/human factors engineering (HFE) perspectives, research related to “Assistance systems,” “Physiological & mental state recognition,” “Position sensor technology,” “Behavior recognition,” and “Infotainment” was suggested to HCI/HFE researchers for further research. In particular, HCI/HFE researchers need to focus on research on acceptable levels of automation, observing new driving behaviors, investigation of driver characteristics to develop personalized services, and new technology acceptance to develop and improve smart cars in the future.     

The Usability Construct: A Dead End?

“Usability” is a construct conceived by the human–computer interaction (HCI) community to denote a desired quality of interactive systems and products. Despite its prominence and intensive use in HCI research, the usefulness of the usability construct to HCI theories and to our understanding of HCI has been meager. In this article I propose and discuss two reasons for this state of affairs. The first is that usability is an umbrella construct. Umbrella constructs are prevalent in scientific fields that are broad, diverse, and lack a unifying research paradigm. Accordingly, umbrella constructs, such as usability, tend to be vague and loose, characteristics that challenge our ability to accumulate and communicate knowledge and to capture real-world phenomena. The second reason involves the nature of the relations between the usability construct and its measures, a topic rarely discussed in HCI research. There appears to be a mismatch between how the HCI community has (implicitly) conceptualized these relations and how it has empirically examined them. The relations have been conceptualized according to a formative measurement model but have mostly been tested according to a reflective measurement model. The trouble is that representing the usability construct by the reflective model appears inappropriate, and representing it by the formative model involves considerable difficulties. Possible ways of addressing these issues are discussed, each with its advantages and drawbacks. I conclude that for scientific research on this subject to progress, the usability construct ought to be unbundled and replaced by well-defined constructs. The issues discussed in this article are relevant to other HCI umbrella concepts and constructs such as user experience.