From doing to being: getting closer to the user experience

Abstract

The research by Scheirer et al. (2002) is pivotal in promoting the use of psychophysiological measures in HCI. We argue that rather than inferring users' emotional states from the data, which is difficult to do reliably, the signals can be used as an indicator of user cost by monitoring changes in users' physiological responses. We applied this approach by monitoring Skin Conductance, Heart Rate and Blood Volume Pulse (as well as task performance and user satisfaction) to investigate the impact of media quality degradations on users. Five studies were conducted utilising this approach. Results show that psychophysiological data show responses to audio and video degradations: users respond to specific degradations with increased levels of arousal. In addition, psychophysiological responses do not always correlate with each other and subjective and physiological measures do not always concur, which means that psychophysiological data may detect responses that users are either not aware of or cannot recall at post-session subjective assessment. We thus conclude that psychophysiological measures have a valuable role to play in media quality evaluation. q

Affective computing in the era of contemporary neurophysiology and health informatics

“…Subjective and physiological readings are not always fully correlated, as well pointed out by Wilson and Sasse (2004), and this may mean that physiological measures could provide information about responses that cannot be detected otherwise. Thus, our proposal is that use of neurophysiological methods would enhance such HCI studies even further.…”

A New Automated Method for Evaluating Mental Workload Using Handwriting Features

“…The last decade has witnessed a growing interest in evaluating mental workload as a basic means of better understanding and improving human-computer interactions [2]- [4]. For example, Vertegaal and Chen used realtime feedback of mental workload to devise adaptive strategies of interruptions in a mobile phone [2].…”

“…For example, Vertegaal and Chen used realtime feedback of mental workload to devise adaptive strategies of interruptions in a mobile phone [2]. Lin et al [3] and Wilson and Sasses [4] have also emphasized that mental workload is a crucial user cost during interactions and should be carefully considered from both a health and safety point of view, since interaction techniques are becoming more and more pervasive. More importantly, it is highly desirable for intelligent training systems to evaluate learners' mental workload and keep it at an appropriate level in order to maximize their learning performance and motivation [5].…”

Doing to Be: Multiple Routes to Affective Interaction

“…Can words be enough? Wilson and Sasse (2004) focus more on the recognition side of self-adaptive affective computing. Scheirer et al (2002) Ward and Marsden in these commentaries) and that better measures and instruments are available (as advocated by Bamidis et al in these commentaries).…”

“…Other commentaries in this issue argue for a greater role for the designer in affective interaction. Wilson and Sasse (2004) and Ward and Marsden (2004) focus on methodological difficulties in recognising affect. Bamidis et al (2004) see more extensive instrumentation and measures as a basis for potential improvement.…”