My talk from the 2015 Big Design Conference in Dallas, TX. Discusses how the use of biometric capture devices may give us a new tool in our user experience research toolkit.
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PREPARED BY
BIOMETRICS IN UX RESEARCH:
THE NEXT BIG STEP
September 19, 2015
Big Design Conference
Dan Berlin, Managing Director, Experience Research
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Biometrics in UX Research: The Next Big Step
Today’s Talk
• State of UX Research Today
• What are Biometrics?
• Using Biometrics for UX Research
• Biometric Research Going Forward
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Biometrics in UX Research: The Next Big Step
Hi! I’m Dan Berlin
• BA in Psychology from Brandeis U.
• Seven years of tech support
• Participant in a usability study and discovered the world of UX
• Quit my job
• Did a 2.5 year program at Bentley U. to get an MBA and MS in
Human Factors in Information Design
• Have been doing UX research for eight years
• Managing Director of Experience Research at Mad*Pow, a
design agency in New England
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Biometrics in UX Research: The Next Big Step
What Are Biometrics?
Galvanic Skin Response (GSR)
• Measures stress levels via skin’s
electrical conductivity
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Biometrics in UX Research: The Next Big Step
What Are Biometrics?
Blood Volume Pulse (BVP)
• Measures valence
(positive or negative
stress) via amount of
blood in the fingertips
(Scheirer, Fernandez, Klein, & Picard, 2002)
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Biometrics in UX Research: The Next Big Step
Best Practices
• Inform the recruiter and respondents informed about
the use of biometric tools
• Explain the sensors to participants as you attach them
• Minimize distractions, including outside noise
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Biometrics in UX Research: The Next Big Step
Running the Study
• Start with a resting period
• Surfing the web or reading a magazine
• Do an easy, baseline task then move on to the
stimulus task
• Ideally, this is done before each stimulus, but okay if not
Baseline
Task
(1 min)
Stimulus
Task
Stimulus
Task
Ideal
AcceptableResting
(5 mins)
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Biometrics in UX Research: The Next Big Step
Analyzing Data
• Data over time
• Normalize the data and plot it over time to find trends and
events
• Significant events
• Determine % change from baseline and find spikes/dips
• Specific events
• Look at the data during the time the participant was interacting
with something specific
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Biometrics in UX Research: The Next Big Step
More Research is Needed… Much More
• Does it all work as expected? Does it behave as the literature shows?
• Recreate the studies of the early 2000s with modern equipment and interfaces
• What additional value does it provide beyond current qualitative
measures? At what cost?
• Comparative studies between traditional usability studies and biometric studies
• What methods work best? What methods don’t work well?
• Comparative studies between different moderation and analysis methods
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Biometrics in UX Research: The Next Big Step
More Research is Needed… Much More
• The equipment and software is getting cheaper by
the day
• Anyone can do this type of research
• Don’t forget to tell us what does and doesn’t work!
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Biometrics in UX Research: The Next Big Step
For More Information
Eye Tracking: A comprehensive guide to methods and measures. Kenneth Holmqvist,
et. al., Oxford University Press, 2011.
Eye Tracking the User Experience. Aga Bojko, Rosenfeld Media, 2013.
Eye Tracking in User Experience Design. Jennifer Romano-Bergstrom & Andrew Schall,
Morgan Kaufman, 2014.
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Biometrics in UX Research: The Next Big Step
For More Information
Psychophysiology: Human Behavior & Physiological Response. John L. Andreassi,
Psychology Press, 2006.
The Handbook of Psychophysiology. John Cacioppo, Louis G. Tassinary, & Gary G.
Berntson, 2007.
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Biometrics in UX Research: The Next Big Step
References
Galfino, G., Dalmaso M., Marzoli D., Pavan, G., Coricelli C., & Castelli L. (2012). Eye gaze cannot
be ignored (but neither can arrows). Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 65(10), 1895-
1910. doi: 10.1080/17470218.2012.663765
Posner, J., Russell JA., Peterson, BS. (2005 Summer) The circumplex model of affect: an
integrative approach to affective neuroscience, cognitive development, and psychopathology.
Development and Psychopathology, 17(3), 715-734.
Rohrer, C. (2014, October 12). When to Use Which User-Experience Research Methods.
Retrieved from: http://www.nngroup.com/articles/which-ux-research-methods
Scheirer, J., Fernandez, R., Klein, J., & Picard, R. (2002). Frustrating the User on Purpose: A Step
Toward Building an Affective Computer. MIT Media Laboratory Perceptual Computing Section
Technical Report No. 509. Retrieved from: http://vismod.media.mit.edu/tech-reports/TR-509.pdf
Ward, R., Marsden, P., Cahill, B., & Johnson C. (2002). Physiological Responses to Well-Design
and Poorly Designed Interfaces. Proceedings of CHI 2002 Workshop on Physiological Computing.
Minneapolis, MN, USA.
Notes de l'éditeur
Often, participants say things to please the moderator or generally adhering to their cognitive biases
How many people here have benefitted from UX research of some nature?
If room allows: get people to give examples
Explain what the picture is showing
This is the setting for the most common UX research
People are most familiar with usability studies and user interviews
Formative interviews, formative/evaluative/summative usability
Watch from the observation room, bang on the glass
Lab-based studies are but one venue
It’s good to observe people in their natural habitat, instead of the artificial lab
That way, we get to see how they really do things – not just what they tell us: where they keep supplies, how they handle medicine or storing things
Users do crazy things that they may not be willing to tell us – so go watch them without them knowing (within reason, of course)
Going forward here, it may seem like I don’t like qualitative methods – I do, they’re great
They allow us to ask probing questions based on user feedback and behavior
In no other setting do we get to ask “Why”, which is a very important question
But qualitative data can be hard to analyze
Oftentimes, it comes down to how many times a concept was mentioned by the different participants
Word cloud are pretty, and clients love seeing them, but they really aren’t great analysis tools – it is the presentation layer
Affinity diagramming is another great qualitative tool
Can organize and categorize concepts to find trends
Those are all great methods, but I’m a big fan of the spreadsheet
List and prioritize your findings & count how many participants encountered or mentioned the finding
Good way to keep track when transferring findings to the report
Always start with findings, not recommendations
Once all documented, can move to the report
Always have actionable recommendations, based on the findings
For usability studies all of the findings are based on what users say and what the moderator observed them do
And this is great! Tried and true, get us good data, and has helped to improve countless interfaces
Qualitative methods are great, but researchers have been searching for a quantitative measure of usability for years
Clients love numbers – “prove to me” that one interface is better than another
Traditionally, we’ll compare the number of usability issues between interfaces, or ask participants to opine about different interfaces
Typically, qualitative data doesn’t provide the “proof” that many clients are looking for
Over the past few years many companies have appeared offering automated usability studies
These are online studies that allow us to collect usability data from a large number of people – allows for statistical significance
And they’re great, for the most part
Eye tracking is the other quantitative method that has been around for quite some time and is only picking up steam over the past few years
Eye tracking devices are not only getting more comfortable for participants, but are also drastically reducing in price
Old and new eye trackers follow the same basic principle: follow the pupil to determine where the user is looking
These are two head-mounted eye trackers; both use a scene camera to capture the participants’ view of view and an ocular to track the pupil
Javal (1878) described eye movements during reading - used a mirror and the naked eye
Tied to cognition in the 70s
Personal computers in the 80s
Goldberg and Kotval first tied eye tracking to usability metrics in 1999
Corneal reflection was used as long ago as 1901
Infrared light and cameras track participants’ pupil via light reflection
So, have to screen out respondents with eye problems
The number of eye trackers has exploded in the past 2-3 years
Used to be $40,000 for a behemoth of a unit
Can now get a small, $100 eye tracker that works quite well
Trick is in the software; need good software to interpret the hardware’s data
Goggles for real-world; remote for on-screen
Eye tracking has shown us some cool stuff about how humans interact with websites and other interfaces
People tend to look at faces
F-pattern
Not here to argue whether eye tracking is worth it for UX research – plenty of debate there
Gaze plot allows us to see where one individual looked, in what order, and for how long
So let’s take a step back, forget about the traditional eye tracking metrics (fixations per second, fixation duration, time to 1st fixation)
At it’s most basic, eye trackers allow us to see where people are looking at a given point of time, which sets us up to collect biometric information
Whenever I say biometrics, many people tell me that they think I’m talking about the things used for security products
Yes, those are biometrics, but not the ones were talking about
Mainly looking at two body traces: GSR and heart rate
When we get stressed, we sweat, which increases the electrical conductivity of the skin
GSR capture devices allow us to measure the amount of conductivity by examining the resistance between two points
There’s a small gap after the participant experiences something before GSR reacts
Has been tied to cognitive load and overall stress
BVP is the measure of the amount of blood in our fingertips
When we have negative stress, blood rushes from our extremities to our vital organs – prepares us to run away from the lion
Positive stress = blood goes to the extremities (blushing)
You’re all probably wondering if all of this looks like something out of A Clockwork Orange
It doesn’t
Shimmer, Affectiva, Empatica, Journey to Wild Devine, heart rate ear clip for iPhone app