Measuring the response bias induced by an experience and application research center

Abstract

In recent years we have observed the rise of Experience and Application Research centers (EARC). These EARCs simulate realistic environments and are used for the empirical evaluation of interactive systems in a controlled setting. Such laboratory environments are intended to facilitate data collection without influencing the data itself. Accumulated experience in the use of EARCs has raised concerns that test participants could be impressed by the environments and have raised expectations for advanced systems they expect to encounter; this brings about the danger of systematic bias in subjective report data collected with EARCs. To evaluate the impact of an EARC as an instrument, a controlled experiment with 40 test participants was conducted. This experiment involved the replication of a traditional usability test in both the EARC and a traditional laboratory environment. The results of this study provide evidence regarding the validity and reliability of EARCs as instruments for evaluating interactive systems