[IxDA Discuss] frustation meter

[Robert Hoekman, Jr.]

>
> I was wondering if any of you has had experience using a tool to
> quantify the frustration of the user while using an interface


Something other than a Likert scale or something to record their responses?

I'm not sure how reliable it would be, even if there is something. In
testing sessions, users often rate the difficulty of tasks based on how
difficult they thought it was *after* they figured it out. For example, if
it takes 5 minutes for a user to figure out how to complete a task, but then
realize the task was rather easy once she understood it, she may rate it as
having been really easy. When you know how to do something, it's easy. It's
as though they *forget* how difficult it was to learn how to do it.

People like to avoid embarrassing themselves, and since they blame
themselves for mistakes in apps, they rate things well so the moderator
won't view them as idiots. This seems to happen no matter how much you tell
someone that you're testing the software and not the user.

It's one of those funny little quirks that makes usability testing a
questionable practice.

-r-