User experience Quantification method research and case study

The research of user experience quantification method

In recent years, the word user experience appears in the Internet, books. In many user experience related descriptions, a high degree of awareness includes: (1) User experience is the user in the process of using the product felt, the total content of the sum; (2) The user experience is an important standard to measure the quality of products, and it is an interactive collection. At the same time, whether the user experience of the relevant staff, or a large number of corporate executives, are aware that a good user experience can not only meet the needs of users, but also to improve the economic efficiency of enterprises.

At this point, the user experience of the relevant staff faced with the problem is how to evaluate the product to the user experience? This requires us to quantify the user experience in a certain way. On the basis of the research made by Norman and Robert, we have made a bold attempt in the quantitative method of user experience. In the research process of the user experience quantization method, we first set up the user experience level by analyzing the user experience process, secondly, based on this level, we look for the component elements of each level and the relationship between the elements, and propose the method of user experience quantization according to the hierarchy division. Furthermore, the application of the quantitative method of user experience is elaborated through the case.

Here, I will be three times to show you the whole method of research, today to share with you is the user experience level of the establishment of the model.

The construction of

user experience hierarchy model

In order to study the user experience quantification method, we first need to clarify how the user experience is produced. This requires us to build a user experience hierarchy that encompasses all the elements and can show the interrelationships between the elements. Norman believes that user experience is a kind of interaction-related collection, which provides a basis for the construction of user experience hierarchy. So we combine the Norman theory from the user experience of the process of the user experience in a fuzzy hierarchical division, the hierarchy is called fuzzy because for different operators and different products, and even different tasks, each level of the elements of the division is different, this will be in other studies, but in the The User Experience quantification methodology Study Series will no longer be detailed. The user experience fuzzy hierarchy model is shown in Figure 1.

Figure 1 User experience fuzzy hierarchy model

Figure 1 shows the process of generating the user experience, which is at the bottom of the entire user experience fuzzy hierarchy, including product-level elements and behavioral-level elements. For example, the product level of the elements include the voice of the phone, light, mobile phone images, video, etc., and the behavioral aspects of the elements include press, long Press, click, double-click and so on. The behavior interaction layer is the unit that directs the user to interact with the product, and it is not difficult to find that the interaction between the user and the product can be formed by the smallest unit shown in Figure 1, and several behaviors interact to form the user's experience behavior. By rebuilding the contents of Figure 1 in the order in which they occur, we can get the logical level of the user experience and call them the target layer, the behavior layer, the experience layer, as shown in Figure 2. These three levels coincide with the theory of the instinct layer, behavior layer and reflective layer proposed by Norman.

Figure 2 User Experience Hierarchy model

On the target layer, users need to identify their own goals, get the information and operation methods needed to fulfill the practical goal, and enter the behavior layer, in the behavior layer, the user completes several behavior interactions, finally enters the experience layer, and the user can produce different subjective feelings in the experience layer. This needs to measure the user's subjective feeling through the questionnaire method. The three levels are interrelated and affect each other, which is the inevitable component of the user experience formation. The user has formed the final subjective feeling in the experience layer, and the target layer, the behavior layer is the user subjective feeling reason, is also the user subjective feeling objective record, through to the target layer, the behavior layer analysis, may obtain the user corresponding subjective feeling. This is clearly reflected in the user experience method that is presented later.

Based on the user experience hierarchy model, we put forward three kinds of user experience quantization methods: task-centered, experience-centered and behavior-centered quantization. There are different elements in the three methods, and there are different relationships among them, which will be discussed in detail in the next blog.

In the study of user experience quantization (a), we put forward three methods of quantifying user experience based on user experience Hierarchy Model: task-centric, behavior-centric and experience-centric quantization. In this blog we will specifically introduce the next three methods.

3. A quantitative approach to user experience (1) a task-centric quantification approach

The task-centered quantification method is to quantify the experience of the user in the process of using the product, starting from the target layer and evaluating the objective things. The process will be a quantitative analysis of each task. The target layer in the user experience hierarchy model is built for the needs of the users, and the reason why the quantification method from the target layer is called the task-centered quantization is that the task is the objective representation of the user's behavior in accomplishing the goal. Objective things are exactly what we need to quantify. In the actual operation, the user is often after a certain goal, in order to complete this goal and first for their own set up a number of phases of the task (phased goal), the completion of a phased task with a phased goal to achieve. So there is a relationship between the goal and the task: target = task ={periodic task}.

This relationship between goals and tasks provides a great help in quantifying the user experience from the target tier. Next we will consider how to evaluate tasks from an objective perspective. This requires us to understand how the task is accomplished. For the task with product involvement, the completion of the task is closely related to the function of the product. Why do you say that? As we all know, the function of the product determines what kind of task we can use it to accomplish and how to use it to accomplish the task. The function of product is objective existence, it can be quantified, so the quantitative method of task-centered from target layer is realized by quantitative analysis of product function.

Here we take the mobile phone as an example to illustrate the task-centric approach to quantifying the user experience. For mobile phones, its functions include phone calls, text messages, photos, dictionaries, cameras, alarm clocks, calculators, calendars, memos, games, music players ... Because the mobile phone has these functions, so we can through the phone to complete the call, send text messages, photo and other tasks. These features are popular among users, the degree of ease of operation of each function, and even the different functions of the user to provide information efficiency. So the impact of each function on the user experience is different, these formal we have to evaluate. We refer to this series of evaluations as task metrics, as shown in table 1.

Table 1 Task evaluation

Tasks (T) can be divided into common task TC, task TUC, and the common task of TPC. We take the score of task (i) as S (Ti), then there is STI=STCI+STUCI+STPCI. To quantify the user experience as UX, there are:

(1)

Practice shows that the proportion of Tc, TUC and TPC is different, we use WTI to indicate the weight of task (i) in {task}, then the weights of the three are WTc, WTUC, Wtpc and wtc+wtuc+wtpc=1, then there are sti=wtcxstci+ wtucxstuci+ Wtpcxstpci, then UX can be expressed as:

(2)

In the process of using the task-centered quantization method, the emphasis is to calculate the weight of each task in the experience process by evaluating the various points in the description (this is different from the product), and we will discuss it further in the following research, this series of articles won't be elaborated in detail.

(2) The quantization method centered on behavior

The quantitative method based on behavior is to quantify the user experience by analyzing objective factors from the behavior layer. In the behavior-centric quantification approach, we need to analyze what variables exist in the behavior process, and what relationships exist between these variables, in order to obtain a specific numerical value that can be used to measure the completion of the goal. In order to explain the behavior-centered quantization more clearly, we first describe the process of interaction of the behavior as: input of information, action (user action), and output of information, as shown in Figure 3.

Figure 3 Behavior Interaction diagram

Table 2 Analysis of the composition of behavior

The text representation of Figure 3 is shown in table 2. Where steps and time are processes, directly related to the act in Figure 3; The behavior result refers to the information receiving situation, by means of the real value which obtains by the experience Center quantization method, the TI represents the behavior I in Figure 1, the definition behavior I brings the experience degree is the STI, then the STI and PTI, TTI exist between:

(3)

However, the behavior-centered quantization method can not exist independently, it is to use the experience-centric quantification method to be used, the user experience Quantification method Research (iii) will be specific to the use of this method to specify.

(3) A quantitative approach centered on experience

Experience-centered quantification is achieved through the comprehensive calculation of satisfaction, emotional reflection and aesthetic reaction in the experience process, that is, the degree of experience. The method is to quantify the user experience from the subjective factor of the user, and it needs to be assisted by questionnaires. The satisfaction is recorded as C, the emotional response is F, the aesthetic reaction is a, and the experience level is E, there are: E=c+f+a. Corresponding to the quantization method centered on user behavior, STI is equivalent to E. (Note: This method refers to the relevant theoretical content proposed by Raiden in the research of user experience design based on information construction)

A study on the quantification method of user experience (III.) in this paper, a detailed description of the quantitative method based on the behavior centered is carried out through the case and the quantitative method centered on the experience.

Case Study

The previous article described three user experience quantization methods. Through this article, we will work with cases to study the use of behavioral-centric quantification methods. The case needs to use the experience-centric quantization method to obtain the behavior-centric quantization expression and compare it with the experience-centric quantization results. The details are as follows:

First, the cognitive experiment is used to obtain the time and the steps in the behavioral interaction process. We selected a small sample sampling method, with 24 people involved in the experiment, age distribution between 22~27岁. The task is to complete the photo shoot and send the photos as MMS in the form of two mobile phones with similar appearance, similar keyboard layout and same grade. In the process of photographing, the operator is completed under a unified platform to minimize the impact of environmental factors and other external factors on the process. and recording the operator's operation steps and operation time by recording. Secondly, after each task completes the operator to answer the satisfaction, the emotion response, the esthetic response questionnaire in time, thus records the whole process in time the subjective experience feeling. Finally, in the process of data processing, the time and the steps are obtained through the analysis of the video, and the subjective experience degree is the result of the comprehensive calculation of the satisfaction, the emotional response and the aesthetic reaction. As shown in table 1:

Table 1 Experience Degree calculation

The P and T data obtained in the course of behavior are shown in table 2:

Table 2 Experimental data based on behavior-centered quantification method

Finally, it is necessary to construct a functional relationship between experience degree and step, time STI =f (p,t) =e. Through the analysis of the overall data of the experiment, it is found that the less the operation time of each step, the better the feeling of bringing to the user, which will help to improve the user's experience degree and the negative influence on the user's experience degree. Therefore, when we build the model, we consider that P and t affect the degree of experience in the form of p/t. And everyone's experience standard is different, in the experimental data, the operation time, the step and the experience degree of the part is obvious jumps, therefore we need to determine a standard value to balance all the data. There is also an important element in the behavior layer, that is, the frequency of information reception, that is, the frequency of operation, and the difference in the frequency of operation for everyone to bring different experience evaluation criteria. Therefore, we finally determined to use 129/211 as the standard value by considering the total step, total time and frequency. All the data is balanced by the logarithm of the base p/t of 129/211. We assume that the functional relationship between experience level, step, and Time is: sti=log0.63 (p/t) [A (p/t) 2+b (p/t) +c]. According to this inference, the formula of two surface fitting with the first 15 sets of data in the experimental data is as follows:

sti= log0.63 (p/t) [165 (P/T) 2-109p/t+25.4] (1)

Its visualization is shown in Figure 1.

Fig. 1 schematic diagram of behavior-centric quantization results

The results of the following 9 groups of P and t data in the fitting formula were calculated to be STI, compared with the data e obtained in the Quantification method based on the experience, as shown in table 3:

Table 3 Experimental data based on behavior-centered quantification method

Comparing STI with E, the average difference between them was 8.6% between 1.72,sti and E. In combination with P, T and p/t analysis, the trend of STI data is more apt to describe the experience trend of the operator. This shows that there are still some differences between the quantitative results from the subjective point of view and the quantitative results based on the behavior from the objective. And only the combination of three kinds of quantitative methods, fully consider the subjective and objective factors brought about by the quantitative differences, such a user experience quantification is more accurate.

(Note: This case is a quantitative method in the initial study completed, there are some deficiencies, the late study has improved, there is the opportunity to share with you.) Research ideas also hope to be able to give you some reference. ）

Concluding remarks

This series of articles presents a quantitative approach to three user experiences, which is to study behavior-centric quantization in the case of mobile phone experience. The final expression for the user experience level, experience step, and experience time is:

sti= log0.63 (p/t) [165 (p/t) 2-109p/t+25.4]

The expression shows that the quantification based on behavior is to calculate the experience degree from the objective point of view. At the same time, through the comparative analysis of the data in the case, it shows that subjective and objective factors have significant difference to user experience. Therefore, in order to obtain a more satisfactory user experience quantification, we must consider the application of three methods synthetically. In the next step, we will use more samples to validate the other two methods based on the research in this paper, and to continue to study the quantification of the user experience in three different ways.

Source: Http://ued.taobao.com/blog/2010/03/17/research-methods-of-quantifying-user-experience (3)/