Summary of Lecture 6 (Continued...)

Comparing Psychological Instruments

Date page last modified 04.02.98
Who maintains the web page: Edward Niescior.
Who has editorial responsibility: Clare Mc Govern, Lucinda Bailey and Edward Niescior.
Lecture 6 (Part two)(week 3).

This page is only intended as an introduction. For a more detailed analysis see Lecture 7.

Comparing Psychological Instruments - Introduction

How are Psychological Instruments used in HCI?

• For evaluating the ease and enjoyability of use of systems, comprising human-computer interaction, and also the efficiency of the interaction, using UIPM (User Interface Performance Measurement).

They are primarily psychological, as it is not always easy for participants to define how easy or enjoyable/pleasant their experience was.

The 7 Psychological Instruments are:

Instruments are selected according to their properties:

• Whose judgement decides the data?
  eg. questionnaire - user, interview - investigator.



• are external or internal factors, or both, measured?
  External - eg. what the user does
  Internal - what the user remembers, or how they feel



• cost to the subject, (often depends on their status)



• cost to the investigator



• retrospective or on the spot measurements?



• comparability of test episodes



• prompt type, eg. none, investigator, other users

Often several instruments are used in a single testing episode, eg.

Problems with instrument selection

Not knowing where the problems are, therefore where to concentrate attention. Iterative information gathering is required to guage:

• where the problems are
• study goals
• type of information needed
• appropriate instrumentation

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