[IxDA Discuss] frustation meter

[Timothy Yeo]

Hi Juan.

My first question is: Why are you interested in measuring the  
frustration of a user in a usability test (UT)?

I think as moderators of a UT, we observe accurately enough when  
users are frustrated with a UI. The ideal situation would be for  
users to have no frustration at all (unless it is desired by design,  
for whatever reason).  If users are frustrated, then there is a  
problem and it should be fixed. Why would it be important to measure  
how frustrated users are?

But let's put the [discussion of its purpose] aside for a moment and  
consider how a user's frustration can be measured:
1. To be accurate, quantification has to come from users themselves,  
not interpreted by a 3rd party
2. The process of measuring has to occur passively, not requiring  
users to consciously input their frustration level (lest the action  
of inputting their frustration can cause frustration in itself, and  
interrupt the execution of the task as well)

I'm no scientist, but would sticking probes to monitor brain activity  
be able to measure frustration? How else can we accurately measure  
frustration in a passive way?

Some of the ideas like squeezing a ball or pressing a "stress" button  
sounds interesting (I can imagine someone pounding away on a big red  
buzzer), but it isn't passive and interrupts the task execution.  
Moreover, the very act of squeezing/pressing might be releasing/ 
reducing the user's frustration somewhat thereafter; wouldn't that  
affect subsequent measures of frustration too?

Hmm.. let's see where this discussion leads us. It would help if we  
understood its purpose though.

Thanks.

Tim..


On Nov 2, 2007, at 10:53 AM, Juan Ruiz wrote:
>
> I do think that manually inputting the data is more feasible, for
> example, a plus / minus button to increase / decrease the frustration?
>
>
>
> Are there any tools in the market?
>
> Have you tried to collect this type of data in real time?
>
>
>
> -Juan
>
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