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I’m off enjoying my free time!

Regards,
Kevin

The presented information (content) and the interaction path were the same for both websites. The websites differed on 2 other aspects. First, the presentation mode was different; one website was presented solely in text, the other used as many images as possible to inform the participant about the rooms. The other aspect was usability; for each presentation mode, a good and bad usability version was made. The websites were paired (visual-good usability with text-bad usability, and visual-bad usability with text-good usability), and each participant had to rate one pair. It soon became clear that the visual websites were hard to use, for a number of reasons. This meant some comparisons between the websites could not be made. However, in the end it was about testing the method to measure interaction, not the websites.

The experiment could be performed online and the same method to measure emotions was used as in the first experiment. A screenshot of the website was shown for 10 seconds, after which the first (emotional) impression had to be rated. Then, two tasks on the website had to be performed in order to create an ‘interaction experience’. The same rating process was performed after both tasks were accomplished. After that, the website had to be rated for beauty, goodness, and spent mental effort.

Scoring Cards
The scoring cards for the four websites are presented below. Click on them for larger images.

The Text, Good Usability website was rated rather good after the screenshot, but after the interaction it was rated even better. The website scores average on beauty and high on goodness. The mental effort score is low, which is positive. The top scoring emotion words do not change much for this website.

The Text, Bad Usability website scored more in the negative octants than the TU+ website, but it still scored rather positive in general. The scores for beauty and goodness were also a little lower for this text version. This was expected as the lay-out was less clear and tidy than the Good Usability version. The main functionality was the same however; the emotion radar shifts to a more positive view after interaction and a low value for mental effort.

The first impression of the Visual Good Usability website was very positive, as can be seen from the emotion radar after the screenshot. The second emotion radar is almost a mirror to the first radar, completely shifting from positive to negative. The bad usability was probably the reason for this. It is also visible in the high mental effort rating and the low scoring for goodness. The emotion words also shift to negative, although some participants remain positive about the website.

The Visual, Bad Usability website shows the same pattern as the Good Usability version, only more extreme. There is a higher score for mental effort and a lower score for goodness. The website is till regarded beautiful, but the top rated emotion words tell a story of disappointment and dissatisfaction.

Conclusions
The main goal of experiment 2 was to see whether differences could be measured in the emotional experience of a website before and after interaction. It was expected to find these differences in the different distribution of the octants of Russell’s circular structure (translated into the Emotion Radar).
It was found that the interaction process was noticeable in the emotional experience of participants. The scoring of octants on the Emotion Radar differed for all websites. In a pre-test, neither of the visual websites were perceived as good on usability. This was clearly visible in the scoring cards. The websites were regarded beautiful and scored high on the positive octants before interaction. After interaction, because of the poor usability, the negative octants were chosen most often. The differences were rather extreme for these websites and perhaps easier to measure. However, the differences in usability for the textual sites were more subtle and the Emotion Radar was also able to measure these nuances between the websites.

In a next post, I will go in more details about the results. This will regard Mahlke’s model and the interplay between non-instrumental and instrumental qualities, as found in the experiment.

Pat Jordan makes a distinction in the levels of pleasure a product evokes. According to Jordan pleasure in the context of products can be defined as the emotional, hedonic and practical benefits associated with products. It is one step further in the hierarchy of needs (functionality – usability – pleasure). Jordan suggests four different kinds of pleasure: physiological, social, psychological and ideological pleasure. These pleasures are the result of the relationships and interactions between a person and a product.Physiological pleasures are derived from sensory organs. They are connected with touch, taste and smell as well as feelings of sexual and sensual pleasure.
Social pleasure is derived from social interaction, such as the status a product implies or its role within social interaction. A product can facilitate talk between people and indicate a belonging to a social group.
Psychological pleasure is gained through cognitive and emotional reactions. It is gained from accomplishing a task and relates to the extent to which an object can help accomplishing a task.
Ideological pleasures concerns with people’s values and may relate to a product’s aesthetics or values it embodies.

Anat Rafaeli presented a model that suggests artefacts need to be analysed according to three aspects: instrumentality, aesthetics and symbolism.
Instrumentality is the extent to which the artefact contributes to the performance or to promoting goals. An instrumental quality thus. Negative emotions are evoked in situations where people’s performance goals are not met by the artefact. The main goal is to produce neutral emotions.
Aesthetics and symbolism represent the two categories of non-instrumental qualities.
Aesthetics is the dimension that regards the sensory experience an artefact elicits, and the extent to which this experience fits individual goals and spirits.
Symbolism refers to the meanings and associations that are caused by the products.

Lavie and Tractinsky examined users’ perceptions of website aesthetics. They found two main dimensions of aesthetics: The classical aesthetics dimension emphasizing orderly and clear design and the expressive aesthetics dimension reflecting ‘the designer’s creativity and originality’. It is believed that good design should strive to balance the two dimensions to the given design context. As Arnheim said: ‘Complexity without order produces confusion; order without complexity produces boredom’. The research further showed correlations of both aesthetic dimensions with pleasure and perceived usability. The classical aesthetic dimension was correlated substantially higher in relation to pleasure and perceived usability than expressive aesthetics.

Hassenzahl identified two kinds of hedonic attributes as presented in an earlier post. These attributes are related to the user’s self and can be subdivided into identification and stimulation. Stimulation (and novelty and challenge) is a basic human need in the personal development process. The need for something new, to explore. A user’s identification with a product is a way to express one’s important personal values. It is a social characteristic, because individuals want to be seen in specific ways by relevant others.

The top layer ‘Usability’ is derived from Bevan’s abstact ISO 9241-11 definition of usability in terms of efficiency, effectiveness and satisfaction. Efficiency is defined as the ‘resources expended in relation to the accuracy and completeness with which users achieve goals’. Effectiveness as the ‘accuracy and completeness with which users achieve specified tasks’ and satisfaction as subjective measure that concerns the ‘comfort and acceptability of use by end users’. This last subject is further treated as a non-instrumental quality.

The second layer (usage indicators) shows more specific elements of usability by Nielsen. The five indicators of the usability level can actually be observed in practice when users are at work. Each of these indicators contributes to the abstract aspects of the higher level (as indicated by the arrows).
The third level is the level of means. These means are used in heuristics for improving one or more of the usage indicators. They can either have a positive or negative effect on some of the indicators.

Schneiderman’s 8 golden rules for design are a well-known example of these means:
1. Strive for consistency
2. Enable frequent users to use shortcuts
3. Offer informative feedback
4. Design dialogs to yield closure
5. Offer error prevention and simple error handling
6. Permit easy reversal of actions
7. Support internal locus of control
8. Reduce short-term memory load

As said, I’ve been reading a lot lately and I’ll try to sum up some interesting findings. I used a model as proposed by Sascha Mahlke for emotional experience in interactive contexts as the basis of my second experiment: The Components of User Experience (CUE) Model. I will explain the model in this post and in the next few weeks I’ll elaborate about the various elements.

Two general assumptions are underlying the model. First, user experience is closely related with human-technology interaction, and influences the user’s appraisal of the system. Second, user experience can be described in terms of distinct components interacting with each other in a particular way.

User experience is gained through the user’s interaction with the system. The features of the system (such as functionality and interface design) and the features of the user (such as knowledge and skills) affect the interaction. The interaction usually aims at accomplishing a particular task and finds place in a certain context. All these aspects together shape the interaction characteristics.

The user is repeatedly confronted with these characteristics during interaction. Mahlke & Thüring believe they gain attention and are perceived as two inherent qualities of the system. Instrumental qualities that are related to the usability and usefulness of a system, non-instrumental qualities that result from its appeal and attractiveness. Both types of quality are likely to influence the third component: emotional reactions, that accompany the user’s interaction with the system.

The negatively rated website:

The website that was rated both negative and positive:

Yesterday I started analysing the results and they look very promising for the validity of the tool. I’m currently involved in writing a paper about the experiment with Marco van Hout and Thea van der Geest for the ‘Designing Pleasurable Products and Interfaces’ conference. The deadline is the 28th of February, so you’ll understand I’m pretty busy until then. After finishing the paper I will write a blog with a summary of the results. This will be at the end of next week.

Until then and thanks again!
Kevin

I’d like to invite you in joining the experiment. It will take approximately 20/25 minutes of your time and you have the opportunity to win a copy of the Designing Interactions book by Bill Moggridge. It’s a great book with interesting interviews and nice pictures; definitely worthwhile.
I hope you will take the time to participate in the Dutch or English version of the test.

Thanks in advance!

Oh, and in case you missed the link to the test… HERE it is again.