Title

The Effect Of Testing Location On Usability Testing Performance, Participant Stress Levels, And Subjective Testing Experience

Keywords

Anxiety; Critical incident method; Stress; Synchronous remote testing; Usability testing

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. © 2010 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Publication Date

7-1-2010

Publication Title

Journal of Systems and Software

Volume

83

Issue

7

Number of Pages

1258-1266

Document Type

Article

Personal Identifier

scopus

DOI Link

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jss.2010.01.052

Socpus ID

77953137534 (Scopus)

Source API URL

https://api.elsevier.com/content/abstract/scopus_id/77953137534

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