Title

The effect of testing location on usability testing performance, participant stress levels, and subjective testing experience

Authors

Authors

C. Andrzejczak;D. H. Liu

Comments

Authors: contact us about adding a copy of your work at STARS@ucf.edu

Abbreviated Journal Title

J. Syst. Softw.

Keywords

Usability testing; Synchronous remote testing; Critical incident method; Anxiety; Stress; Computer Science, Software Engineering; Computer Science, Theory &; Methods

Abstract

The effect of testing location on usability test elements such as stress levels and user experience is not clear. A comparison between traditional lab testing and synchronous remote testing was conducted. The present study investigated two groups of users in remote and traditional settings. Within each group participants completed two tasks, a simple task and a complex task. The dependent measures were task time taken, number of critical incidents reported, and user-reported anxiety score. Task times differed significantly between the physical location condition; this difference was not meaningful for real world application, and likely introduced by overhead regarding synchronous remote testing methods. Critical incident reporting counts did not differ in any condition. No significant differences were found in user reported stress levels. Subjective assessments of the study and interface also did not differ significantly. Study findings suggest a similar user testing experience exists for remote and traditional laboratory usability testing. (C) 2010 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Journal Title

Journal of Systems and Software

Volume

83

Issue/Number

7

Publication Date

1-1-2010

Document Type

Article

Language

English

First Page

1258

Last Page

1266

WOS Identifier

WOS:000278656500015

ISSN

0164-1212

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