6 research outputs found
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Evaluating usability of e-commerce sites by tracking eye movements
The majority of existing e-commerce design guidelines has been derived by conducting heuristic evaluations, without reporting the involvement of the users themselves. This research provides clarification on a number of existing web design guidelines for e-commerce sites based on empirical studies with users. Four studies were conducted and each study focused on a specific set of design guidelines as found in the literature. A combined qualitative and quantitative approach has been used, including a state-of-the-art technique, eye tracking. The eye movement data were complemented by user-profile data elicited through background questionnaires and user-perception data as captured through semi-structured interviews. The first study investigated usersâ initial impressions of homepages of e-commerce sites. The second study examined usersâ adaptability to persistent or varied placement of design elements. The third and fourth studies explored the effect of the presentation format of e-commerce web pages: the first in terms of the proportion of images, and the second in terms of how key icons related to an e-commerce transaction were presented. On the whole, the results of the studies corroborated existing design guidelines, but they also identified potential refinements. The thesis contributes both methodologically and empirically to Human-Computer Interaction. The combined methodological approach enables insight into the user experience that spans behavioural aspects such as visual search behaviour and visual search performance data, and subjective aspects such as user expectations and preferences. The empirical outcomes amplify the design
guidelines from a userâs perspective
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Ethics in usability engineering
Usability practitioners frequently face ethical dilemmas during design and evaluation of systems [e.g. 1â5]. Examples of such professional challenges or ethical dilemmas are: is informed consent required from fellowâcolleagues for usability activities being conducted within the organisation?; what if the client asks the usability engineer to use the data gathered on one study to draw inferences for another related study?; how can the usability data and personal data of the participants be held securely?; will the use of incentives to encourage participation create a bias in sampling or in participant responses?; is it ethical to use the videoârecording of a usability test in a presentation at a conference?; is it fine to include the results from a consultancy activity in a conference paper?; can personal correspondence over emails with a participant about a product or service be included in the organisationâs usability data for that product or service?. In this miniâtutorial, we will present realâlife case studies of a variety of systems (webâbased, 3D virtual worlds) and domains (eâcommerce, eâlearning) to discuss the ethical concerns, and the measures that were taken to cater for the ethics. We will provide a pack to the attendees comprising of the following: web resources to ethics principles, codes of practice for conducting usability research, and guidelines available from professional organisations, samples of research materials such as consent form and project summary sheet that accompanies the consent form, information about tools and techniques for secure storage of data and to protect the privacy and anonymity of the participants, and bibliography related to ethics in HumanâComputer Interaction and usability.
References:
1. C. E. Wilson. 2007. Ethical Dilemma Redux, Interactions, pp. 50â51.
2. O. K. Burmeister. 2001. Usability Testing: Revisiting Informed Consent Procedures for Testing Internet Sites. In Selected Papers from the Second Australian Institute Conference on Computer Ethics vol. 7. Edited by J. Weckert. ACM International Conference Proceeding Series. Darlinghurst, Australia: Australian Computer Society, 2000, pp. 3â9.
3. M. Catterall and P. Maclaren. 2001. Researching consumers in virtual worlds: a cyberspace odyssey, Journal of Consumer Behaviour, vol. 1, no.3, pp. 228â237.
4. R.B. Molich, C. Laurel, C. Snyder, W. Quesenbery, and C.E. Wilson. 2001. Ethics in HCI. In CHI â01 Extended Abstracts on Human Factors in Computing Systems. CHI â01 Seattle, Washington, March 31 â April 05, 2001. New York: ACM Press, pp. 217â218.
5. W. E. Mackay. 1995. Ethics, lies and videotape....â In Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems. Denver, Colorado, May 7â11, 1995. Edited by I. R. Katz, R. Mack, L. Marks, M. B. Rosson, and J. Nielsen. Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems. New York: ACM Press/AddisonâWesley Publishing Co., pp. 138â145
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Evaluating e-commerce environments: approaches to cross-disciplinary investigation
In our on-going e-commerce research programme, we are employing techniques from HCI, cognitive psychology, social psychology, and marketing and adapting them to investigate customer behaviour with e-commerce environments. Our aim is to investigate the influencing factors beyond the usability of the website that shape the customer's expectations and subsequent experience with e-commerce. In this paper, we propose an empirically-grounded model of customer's purchase and consumption behaviour (derived as a part of our research) that supports systematic choice of techniques for the customer-centred design and evaluation of e-commerce environments. Our aim is not to provide a handbook of techniques but to share experiences of applying complementary techniques for investigating different facets of customer behaviour with e-commerce. This paper is meant to serve as a resource for researchers and practitioners who are involved in research, design and evaluation of e-commerce environments