A Supporting Tool for Enhancing User’s Mental Model Elicitation and Decision-Making in User Experience Research
Marina Martín, Jose Antonio Macias · International Journal of Human-Computer Interaction · 2022
User Experience (UX) research is intended to find insights and elicit applicable requirements to guide usable designs. Card Sorting is one of the most utilized methods. It is used to uncover the user's mental model and increase the usability of existing products. However, although Card Sorting has been widely utilized, most applications are based on spreadsheets. Furthermore, existing tools are principally intended to obtain qualitative information or customized quantitative outcomes to improve the information architecture. In this paper, a supporting tool based on the Card Sorting method is presented and detailed, including a comprehensive use case showing the main features. The tool implements predictive analysis of results through advanced statistics and machine learning techniques, providing comprehensive reports that enable evaluators and UX researchers to obtain high-level knowledge and important quantitative clues to enhance decision-making. The tool has been evaluated with participants and evaluators, obtaining relevant usability results and feedback.