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Introduction to User Experience Research<br />Human Factors, Usability, and Neuromarketing<br />Prepared by:<br />Daniel Berlin – Experience Research Director<br />March 29, 2011<br />Endicott College<br />

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Today’s Presentation<br />2<br /><ul><li>What the heck is a Human Factor?

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How can you measure usability?

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Usability Research

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Eye Tracking

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Neuromarketing – that’s right, we can read your mind

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Biofeedback and Neurofeedback

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Ok, but how does this affect me?</li></li></ul><li>Hi! I’m Dan Berlin<br />3<br /><ul><li>BA in psychology from Brandeis U.

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MBA and MS in Human Factors in Information Design from Bentley U.

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Seven years in technical support

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Sat as a participant for a usability study for a product I was working on

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Realized that user experience (UX) work is the perfect combination of computers and psychology

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Quit my job and enrolled in Bentley’s two year full-time program

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Two years at an interactive agency performing usability and neuromarketing research

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Then did some freelance UX consulting for about a year

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Am now an Experience Research Director at Mad*Pow</li></li></ul><li>What the heck is a Human Factor?<br />4<br />

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What the heck is a Human Factor?<br />Stand up<br />5<br />

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What the heck is a Human Factor?<br />Hop up and down a few times, then stop<br />6<br />

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What the heck is a Human Factor?<br />Lift one foot off of the floor<br />7<br />

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What the heck is a Human Factor?<br />Wait for it…<br />8<br />

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What the heck is a Human Factor?<br />Now hop up and down a few times on one foot*, then stop<br />9<br />*Please don’t hurt yourself, or others around you<br />

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What the heck is a Human Factor?<br />A little harder on one foot, eh?<br />10<br />

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What the heck is a Human Factor?<br />That’s a Human Factor<br />(you can sit down now)<br />11<br />

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What the heck is a Human Factor?<br />12<br /><ul><li>Humans are good at some things, but not all

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We are better walkers than we are swimmers

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Can see better in the day then we can at night

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Human Factors are what makes us tick: cognitively and physically

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How we perceive, think, and move

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UX practitioners apply knowledge of Human Factors when designing and evaluating software and websites

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Ergonomics for the mind</li></li></ul><li>Find the red circle<br />13<br />

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Find the red circle<br />14<br />

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Find the red circle<br />15<br />

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Don’t make me think<br />16<br />No thinking<br />Some thinking<br />Fuhgeddaboudit<br /><ul><li>An interaction is intuitive when the user does not have to think

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We can guide them via visual and interaction design</li></li></ul><li>What the heck is a Human Factor?<br />17<br /><ul><li>To the right: elementary perceptual tasks

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Good at: position, length, direction

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Bad at: area (of a circle), volume, saturation

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This is why you will see line or bar graphs to convey data

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You will never (well, shouldn’t) see a graph that uses color saturation to convey data (i.e. using different shades of orange)</li></li></ul><li>What the heck is a Human Factor?<br />18<br />Gestalt Principles<br />Invariance<br /><ul><li>Designers build affordances into their work to take advantage of our strengths and to bolster our weaknesses

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Term coined by James Gibson, a Gestalt psychologist</li></ul>Emergence<br />Reification<br />Multistability<br />

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19<br />Dark blue bar separates the navigation from the rest of the page.<br />The most important text on the page has the biggest font size.<br />Vertical lines divide the blue bar into buttons.<br />White space separates the news articles.<br />Alternating gray and white rows create separation.<br /><ul><li>We do not have to think about what these design elements mean – we just know</li></li></ul><li>How can you measure usability?<br />20<br />

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How can you measure usability?<br />21<br /><ul><li>First off, what does ‘usability’ really mean?

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ISO 9241: “The effectiveness, efficiency, and satisfaction with which specified users achieve specified goals in particular environments.”

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Effectiveness: Do people make mistakes?

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Efficiency: Can they accomplish the task in a reasonable amount of time?

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Satisfaction: Does the interaction drive people crazy?</li></li></ul><li>How can you measure usability?<br />22<br /><ul><li>Well… there is no way to accurately measure usability

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But there are ways to understand users and learn how they expect to interact with an interface

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Discovery interviews

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Paper prototypes

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Card sorting

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Focus groups

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And there are ways to learn how an existing interface performs

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Usability studies

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Expert/heuristic reviews

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KLM/GOMS</li></li></ul><li>What is a usability study?<br />23<br /><ul><li>In a usability study, 5-15 participants are asked to perform tasks on an interface

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A moderator sits next to the participant to observe and ask questions

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Usability moderators are like computer psychologists

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Instead of asking how people feel about their mothers, we ask about how they feel about the interactions

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Yes, this is a ‘study’ but no, there are typically no numbers to crunch

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We gather mostly qualitative data

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Not cost-efficient to have enough participants to get statistical significance

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5-8 participants will catch a majority of the problems</li></li></ul><li>Eye Tracking<br />24<br /><ul><li>Eye tracking has been around since the late 19th century

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Infrared light bounces off of your retina and back to sensors in the monitor/headset</li></ul>Today<br />Yesterday<br />

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Eye Tracking<br />25<br />Heat Map<br />Gaze Plot<br /><ul><li># of fixations for all participants

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Order of fixations for one participant</li></li></ul><li>Eye Tracking<br />26<br />

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Eye Tracking<br />27<br />Areas of Interest<br /><ul><li>Break the page up into separate “areas of interest” or AOIs

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Compare the fixation data between important areas and less important ones

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If people are staring at the navigation, they may be having a hard time finding a link

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Are people looking at the call to action?

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Call to action = the link on the page that the business wants the users to click (the ‘buy’ button)</li></li></ul><li>Eye Tracking<br />28<br />Area 3<br />Area 4<br />Area 5<br />Area 6<br />Area 1<br />Area 2<br /><ul><li>Participants looked at “Area 1” almost two seconds longer in the second design</li></li></ul><li>Neuromarketing – that’s right, we can read your mind<br />29<br />

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Neuromarketing – that’s right, we can right your mind<br />30<br /><ul><li>Okay, not really

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But we have the technology to try</li></ul>fMRI<br />EEG/EMG<br />Blood oxygenation<br />Brain waves<br />

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Neuromarketing – okay, we can’t read your mind…<br />31<br /><ul><li>Galvanic skin response, heart rate, breathing rate, and skin temperature can be measure to determine ‘fight or flight’ response

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Is the participant calm and cool, or anxious?

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These have been used for decades as a measure of internal state</li></ul>GSR mouse<br />Bioharness Output<br />Bioharness<br />

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Neuromarketing –… but we can try<br />32<br /><ul><li>Daimler-Chrysler fMRI study

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‘Attractive’ cars light up the facial recognition area of the brain

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Campbell’s Soup label</li></li></ul><li>Neuromarketing – there is no ‘buy’ button in the brain<br />33<br /><ul><li>Researchers won’t find an fMRI pattern or brain wave that will accurately predict if a person is going to buy something (or sign up for a newsletter, etc.)

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What they will find are patterns that indicate favorable or negative responses to an interaction

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We know as much about the brain as when doctors were using leeches, possibly less</li></li></ul><li>Okay, but how does this affect me?<br />34<br /><ul><li>You interact with interfaces all day long

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Careers in user experience

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Information architect

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Usability specialist

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Visual designer

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Experience designer

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Grad school

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Bentley University – MS Human Factors

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George Mason – MA Graphic Design

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Tufts – MS Human Factors Engineering

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U. of Maryland – MS Systems Engineering

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U. of Michigan – MS Computer Science

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Carnegie Mellon – MS Human Computer Interaction

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Your future career WILL involve user experience

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The product your company sells

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How your company interacts with customers

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How you collaborate with your coworkers</li></li></ul><li>Thank you!<br />35<br />