Quantifying diversity in user experience

Evaluation should be integral to any design activity. Evaluation in innovative product development practices however is highly complicated. It often needs to be applied to immature prototypes, while at the same time users’ responses may greatly vary across different individuals and situations. This thesis has focused on methods and tools for inquiring into users’ experiences with interactive products. More specifically, it had three objectives: a) to conceptualize the notion of diversity in subjective judgments of users’ experiences with interactive products, b) to establish empirical evidence for the prevalence of diversity, and c) to provide a number of methodological tools for the study of diversity in the context of product development. Two critical sources of diversity in the context of users’ experiences with interactive products were identified and respective methodological solutions were proposed: a) understanding interpersonal diversity through personal attribute judgments, and b) understanding the dynamics of experience through experience narratives. Personal Attribute Judgments, and in particular, the Repertory Grid Technique, is proposed as an alternative to standardized psychometric scales, in measuring users’ responses to artifacts in the context of parallel design. It is argued that traditional approaches that rely on the a-priori definition of the measures by the researchers have at least two limitations. First, such approaches are inherently limited as researchers might fail to consider a given dimension as relevant for the given product and context, or they might simply lack validated measurement scales for a relevant dimension. Secondly, such approaches assume that participants are able to interpret and position a given statement that is defined by the researcher to their own context. Recent literature has challenged this assumption, suggesting that in certain cases participants are unable to interpret the personal relevance of the statement in their own context, and might instead employ shallow processing, that is respond to surface features of the language rather than attaching personal relevance to the question. In contrast, personal attributes are elicited from each individual respondent, instead of being a-priori imposed by the experimenter, and thus are supposed to be highly relevant to the individual. However, personal attributes require substantially more complex quantitative analysis procedures. It is illustrated that traditional analysis procedures fail to bring out the richness of the personal attribute judgments and two new Multi-Dimensional Scaling procedures that extract multiple complementary views from such datasets are proposed. An alternative approach for the measurement of the dynamics of experience over time is proposed that relies on a) the retrospective elicitation of idiosyncratic selfreports of one’s experiences with a product, the so-called experience narratives, and b) the extraction of generalized knowledge from these narratives through computational content analysis techniques. iScale, a tool that aims at increasing users’ accuracy and effectiveness in recalling their experiences with a product is proposed. iScale uses sketching in imposing a structured process in the reconstruction of one’s experiences from memory. Two different versions of iScale, each grounded in a distinct theory of how people reconstruct emotional experiences from memory, were developed and empirically tested. A computational approach for the extraction of generalized knowledge from experience narratives, that combines traditional coding procedures with computational approaches for assessing the semantic similarity between documents, is proposed and compared with traditional content analysis. Through these two methodological contributions, this thesis argues against averaging in the subjective evaluation of interactive products. It proposes the development of interactive tools that can assist designers in moving across multiple levels of abstractions of empirical data, as design-relevant knowledge might be found on all these levels

User's web page aesthetics opinion: a matter of low-level image descriptors based on MPEG-7

Analyzing a user's first impression of a Web site is essential for interface designers, as it is tightly related to their overall opinion of a site. In fact, this early evaluation affects user navigation behavior. Perceived usability and user interest (e.g., revisiting and recommending the site) are parameters influenced by first opinions. Thus, predicting the latter when creating a Web site is vital to ensure users’ acceptance. In this regard, Web aesthetics is one of the most influential factors in this early perception. We propose the use of low-level image parameters for modeling Web aesthetics in an objective manner, which is an innovative research field. Our model, obtained by applying a stepwise multiple regression algorithm, infers a user's first impression by analyzing three different visual characteristics of Web site screenshots—texture, luminance, and color—which are directly derived from MPEG-7 descriptors. The results obtained over three wide Web site datasets (composed by 415, 42, and 6 Web sites, respectively) reveal a high correlation between low-level parameters and the users’ evaluation, thus allowing a more precise and objective prediction of users’ opinion than previous models that are based on other image characteristics with fewer predictors. Therefore, our model is meant to support a rapid assessment of Web sites in early stages of the design process to maximize the likelihood of the users’ final approval

Expected usability is not a valid indicator of experienced usability

Usability is a core construct of website evaluation and inherently defined as interactive. Yet, when analysing first impressions of websites, expected usability, i.e., before use, is of interest. Here we investigate to what extend ratings of expected usability are related to (a) experienced usability, i.e., ratings after use, and (b) objective usability measures, i.e., task performance. Furthermore, we try to elucidate how ratings of expected usability are correlated to aesthetic judgments. In an experiment, 57 participants submitted expected usability ratings after the presentation of website screenshots in three viewing-time conditions (50, 500, and 10,000 ms) and after an interactive task (experienced usability). Additionally, objective usability measures (task completion and duration) and subjective aesthetics evaluations were recorded for each website. The results at both the group and individual level show that expected usability ratings are not significantly related either to experienced usability or objective usability measures. Instead, they are highly correlated with aesthetics ratings. Taken together, our results highlight the need for interaction in empirical website usability testing, even when exploring very early usability impressions. In our study, user ratings of expected usability were no valid proxy neither for objective usability nor for experienced website usability

Designing Empathy: Ritual Respect

Design approaches have been developed to establish empathy between practitioners, researchers, collaborators, and participants in human-computer interaction (HCI) in the context of health, care, and wellbeing. Unpacking nuances of empathy, in this position paper we discuss our exploratory research into bereavement following miscarriage and consider how our visual practice has enhanced communication and comprehension within an interdisciplinary team. We propose that such accessible visualisations can stimulate a shared, compassionate understanding of user needs, and thus inform the development of empathic services, systems, and solutions

Perceived mobile interactivity influence on usability and mobile marketing acceptance in the informal hair-care business

A research report submitted to the Faculty of Commerce, Law and Management, University of the Witwatersrand, in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Management in Strategic Marketing 2016The African hair-care business has become a multibillion-dollar industry, stretching from India to china attracting global retailers such as Unilever and L’Oréal. The African hair-care market will continue to grow, especially in the informal sector where it is said to employ about 1.5 people per business on permanent basis. In order for small businesses’ performance to improve in emerging markets, especially in the informal sector, improving their marketing skills is quite essential. Mobile marketing is cost effective and can be utilised to benefit both marketing practitioners and consumers. This is imperative in the informal hair-care industry, where businesses generally lack financial resources and therefore do not have a budget to spend on marketing and advertising. The mobile phone therefore becomes an important marketing channel to reach customers and increase profitability in informal hair-care businesses, yet there has not been much academic research conducted on this and little is known about the factors that might influence mobile marketing acceptance. The purpose of this study is therefore to bridge the gap by investigating perceived mobile interactivity influence on usability and mobile marketing acceptance in the informal hair-care industry in South Africa. A quantitative study was conducted using a sample of 312 informal hair-care business operators in the Johannesburg area. Given the nature of the informal sector, a nonprobability sampling method, known as convenience sampling, was used for data collection. For analysing and interpreting data, Structural Equation Modelling (SEM) approach was utilised. The study findings indicate that perceived interactivity dimensions (control, responsiveness and nonverbal information) have a positive effect on mobile phone usability and lead to mobile marketing acceptance. However, the findings showed a negative relation between perceived personalisation and mobile phone usability. This study aims to contribute to mobile marketing literature, be of benefit to Small, Medium and Micro-sized Enterprises (SMMEs) policy makers and add value to the field of marketing. Key words: perceived control, perceived responsiveness, nonverbal information, perceived personalisation, mobile phone usability, mobile marketing acceptanceGR201

Role of Emotions and Aesthetics in ICT Usage for Underserved Communities: A NeuroIS Investigation

Usability and efficiency has received lot of attention in terms of ICT usage and attitude however non instrumental factors like emotions and aesthetics and their impact on ICT usage attitude and performance has not been extensively tested. Further underserved communities are focused communities that have limitations in terms of formal and functional literacy and technology experience. Aesthetics have been shown to be an important predictor of usage but this has not been tested in underserved communities. Also positive emotions have been linked to greater ICT usage as well as aesthetic experience. Measurement of factors like emotions, aesthetic preferences and ICT usage has so far been restricted to questionnaires however we propose to use objective measures like brain imaging technique (EEG) to supplement existing methodologies. The current paper is a research in progress that addresses potential role of aesthetics and emotions for understanding aesthetic preferences and ICT usages in underserved communities

Only Screen Deep? Evaluating Aesthetics, Usability, And Satisfaction In Informational Websites

This thesis explores the role aesthetics plays in informational websites. In commercial interfaces, aesthetics (the perceived visual appeal and appropriateness of an object) has shown to correlate positively with many aspects of usability and emotional satisfaction. This thesis examines whether aesthetics has similar positive correlations in informational websites. Heuristics or guidelines for evaluating informational websites are developed based on empirical research and practitioner expertise. Categories for heuristic evaluation include usability, credibility, visual clarity, visual richness, and emotional satisfaction. A class of graduate students browsed three academic websites, evaluated them, and critiqued the heuristics. Results indicate that aesthetics does correlate with overall impression, usability, satisfaction, and credibility. The data also suggests that there are two dimensions of aesthetics: visual richness and visual clarity. Overall impression correlated with the average of all categories. The heuristics used in this pilot study are now ready to be tested on a larger population