Presentation given to a History of Communications class at Endicott College.

1. Introduction to User Experience Research Human Factors, Usability, and Neuromarketing Prepared by: Daniel Berlin – Experience Research Director March 29, 2011 Endicott College

3. How can you measure usability?

4. Usability Research

5. Eye Tracking

6. Neuromarketing – that’s right, we can read your mind

7. Biofeedback and Neurofeedback

9. MBA and MS in Human Factors in Information Design from Bentley U.

10. Seven years in technical support

11. Sat as a participant for a usability study for a product I was working on

12. Realized that user experience (UX) work is the perfect combination of computers and psychology

13. Quit my job and enrolled in Bentley’s two year full-time program

14. Two years at an interactive agency performing usability and neuromarketing research

15. Then did some freelance UX consulting for about a year

17. What the heck is a Human Factor? Stand up 5

18. What the heck is a Human Factor? Hop up and down a few times, then stop 6

19. What the heck is a Human Factor? Lift one foot off of the floor 7

20. What the heck is a Human Factor? Wait for it… 8

21. What the heck is a Human Factor? Now hop up and down a few times on one foot*, then stop 9 *Please don’t hurt yourself, or others around you

22. What the heck is a Human Factor? A little harder on one foot, eh? 10

23. What the heck is a Human Factor? That’s a Human Factor (you can sit down now) 11

25. We are better walkers than we are swimmers

26. Can see better in the day then we can at night

27. Human Factors are what makes us tick: cognitively and physically

28. How we perceive, think, and move

29. UX practitioners apply knowledge of Human Factors when designing and evaluating software and websites

31. Find the red circle 14

32. Find the red circle 15

35. Good at: position, length, direction

36. Bad at: area (of a circle), volume, saturation

37. This is why you will see line or bar graphs to convey data

39. Term coined by James Gibson, a Gestalt psychologistEmergence Reification Multistability

42. ISO 9241: “The effectiveness, efficiency, and satisfaction with which specified users achieve specified goals in particular environments.”

43. Effectiveness: Do people make mistakes?

44. Efficiency: Can they accomplish the task in a reasonable amount of time?

46. But there are ways to understand users and learn how they expect to interact with an interface

47. Discovery interviews

48. Paper prototypes

49. Card sorting

50. Focus groups

51. And there are ways to learn how an existing interface performs

52. Usability studies

53. Expert/heuristic reviews

55. A moderator sits next to the participant to observe and ask questions

56. Usability moderators are like computer psychologists

57. Instead of asking how people feel about their mothers, we ask about how they feel about the interactions

58. Yes, this is a ‘study’ but no, there are typically no numbers to crunch

59. We gather mostly qualitative data

60. Not cost-efficient to have enough participants to get statistical significance

62. Infrared light bounces off of your retina and back to sensors in the monitor/headsetToday Yesterday

66. Compare the fixation data between important areas and less important ones

67. If people are staring at the navigation, they may be having a hard time finding a link

68. Are people looking at the call to action?

71. But we have the technology to tryfMRI EEG/EMG Blood oxygenation Brain waves

73. Is the participant calm and cool, or anxious?

74. These have been used for decades as a measure of internal stateGSR mouse Bioharness Output Bioharness

76. ‘Attractive’ cars light up the facial recognition area of the brain

78. What they will find are patterns that indicate favorable or negative responses to an interaction

80. Careers in user experience

81. Information architect

82. Usability specialist

83. Visual designer

84. Experience designer

85. Grad school

86. Bentley University – MS Human Factors

87. George Mason – MA Graphic Design

88. Tufts – MS Human Factors Engineering

89. U. of Maryland – MS Systems Engineering

90. U. of Michigan – MS Computer Science

91. Carnegie Mellon – MS Human Computer Interaction

92. Your future career WILL involve user experience

93. The product your company sells

94. How your company interacts with customers