Assessing The User Experience - Case Massidea.org
Houssam El Din Ali · Theseus (Ammattikorkeakoulujen) · 2011
With the current trend towards user experience and being user-centred, evaluating the user experience in the case of massidea.org represents one attempt or step towards a better understanding of the user experience in general. Interactions between users and products and the experience that comes from these encounters are well sought after as a means of understanding experience in general and the user experience that results from dealing with products. It is for this reason that this thesis presents some further research into user experience in an area that mainly thrives on the users’ contribution as exemplified by the case of massidea.org. The purpose of this thesis is to present a balanced approach to the study of user experience and avoid being focused on only exclusive aspects of the user experience. This thesis aims to respond to the current lack of comprehensive studies that investigate the user experience from various perspectives, and not from one specific perspective. Thus this thesis is focused on investigating the user experience from technical and subjective perspectives. The thesis explores the user experience in the case of massidea.org and tries to see the patterns of user experience encountered by the users from different age groups included in the experiment. It also aims to assess the potential of using the IMI type of questionnaires as well as thematic interviews in the process of evaluating the user experience of different age groups of users in the case of massidea.org. This thesis has conducted research on different age groups from the students of Laurea University of Applied Sciences who used the massidea.org in their assignments. It used IMI questionnaires as well as thematic interviews to collect the data from the subjects of the experiment. The theoretical framework for this thesis is derived from a combination of the perspective of the Human-Computer interaction (HCI) for the concept of “user experience” and the IMI-focused empirical studies. By so doing, the current thesis presents a balanced approach to the user experience combining the technical sides and personal subjective aspects of the user experience based on the definition of the “user experience” presented in thesis. The thesis has found some uniform patterns of user experience among different age groups. Differences too were detected and analyzed. Aspects of user experience defined in this thesis were also evaluated in the experience of each age group and similarities regarding the levels of the presence of these aspects were detected. Some gender differences and similarities across the groups in the user experiences of different groups were also detected. The IMI questionnaires and the thematic interviews proved to be reliable to a considerable extent in gaining an insight into the user experience. Suggestions for further research are also given after the conclusions.