TY - GEN
T1 - Subjective Usability, Mental Workload Assessments and Their Impact on Objective Human Performance
AU - Longo, Luca
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2017, IFIP International Federation for Information Processing.
PY - 2017
Y1 - 2017
N2 - Self-reporting procedures and inspection methods have been largely employed in the fields of interaction and web-design for assessing the usability of interfaces. However, there seems to be a propensity to ignore features related to end-users or the context of application during the usability assessment procedure. This research proposes the adoption of the construct of mental workload as an additional aid to inform interaction and web-design. A user-study has been performed in the context of human-web interaction. The main objective was to explore the relationship between the perception of usability of the interfaces of three popular web-sites and the mental workload imposed on end-users by a set of typical tasks executed over them. Usability scores computed employing the System Usability Scale were compared and related to the mental workload scores obtained employing the NASA Task Load Index and the Workload Profile self-reporting assessment procedures. Findings advise that perception of usability and subjective assessment of mental workload are two independent, not fully overlapping constructs. They measure two different aspects of the human-system interaction. This distinction enabled the demonstration of how these two constructs cab be jointly employed to better explain objective performance of end-users, a dimension of user experience, and informing interaction and web-design.
AB - Self-reporting procedures and inspection methods have been largely employed in the fields of interaction and web-design for assessing the usability of interfaces. However, there seems to be a propensity to ignore features related to end-users or the context of application during the usability assessment procedure. This research proposes the adoption of the construct of mental workload as an additional aid to inform interaction and web-design. A user-study has been performed in the context of human-web interaction. The main objective was to explore the relationship between the perception of usability of the interfaces of three popular web-sites and the mental workload imposed on end-users by a set of typical tasks executed over them. Usability scores computed employing the System Usability Scale were compared and related to the mental workload scores obtained employing the NASA Task Load Index and the Workload Profile self-reporting assessment procedures. Findings advise that perception of usability and subjective assessment of mental workload are two independent, not fully overlapping constructs. They measure two different aspects of the human-system interaction. This distinction enabled the demonstration of how these two constructs cab be jointly employed to better explain objective performance of end-users, a dimension of user experience, and informing interaction and web-design.
KW - usability
KW - mental workload
KW - human-web interaction
KW - System Usability Scale
KW - NASA Task Load Index
KW - Workload Profile
KW - user experience
KW - interaction and web-design
UR - https://www.scopus.com/pages/publications/85030862932
U2 - 10.1007/978-3-319-67684-5_13
DO - 10.1007/978-3-319-67684-5_13
M3 - Conference contribution
AN - SCOPUS:85030862932
SN - 9783319676838
T3 - Lecture Notes in Computer Science (including subseries Lecture Notes in Artificial Intelligence and Lecture Notes in Bioinformatics)
SP - 202
EP - 223
BT - Human-Computer Interaction - INTERACT 2017 - 16th IFIP TC 13 International Conference, Proceedings
A2 - Dalvi, Girish
A2 - Joshi, Anirudha
A2 - Balkrishan, Devanuj K.
A2 - O'Neill, Jacki
A2 - Winckler, Marco
A2 - Bernhaupt, Regina
PB - Springer Verlag
T2 - 16th IFIP TC13 International Conference on Human–Computer Interaction, INTERACT 2017
Y2 - 25 September 2017 through 29 September 2017
ER -