Paper presented at the Southwestern Psychological Association Convention 2005
This study examined usability and its effects on user preference and user satisfaction for multiple interface designs (frames, textual, graphical, and traditional). Objective measures included counting the number of unnecessary mouse clicks made while searching for target answers, and accuracy of the answers. Subjective measures included user satisfaction questionnaires for each interface design, and preference ranks for the four designs, as well as for header and text font combinations. Participants were categorized into a young or older category, and used either an Ethernet or modem connection type when viewing their interface designs. The addition of computer and Internet experience as covariates influenced the effects of age and connection type. Although the correlations between experience and age were expected, the correlations between experience and connection type were not anticipated. Participants were expected to make fewer extra mouse clicks and have higher accuracy scores on the frames interface design. However, there was only a trend for participants to make fewer extra mouse clicks on the frames interface. As hypothesized, the frames design yielded the highest user satisfaction scores, while the textual design yielded the second highest user satisfaction scores. For the interface preference ranking, more participants chose the frames interface design as their first choice than any other interface designs. Participants also rated the traditional design as the least preferred design. These findings are highly relevant in the human factors field of usability testing, especially in the initial development process of constructing an interface design.
* This project represents a summary of the Lori Shird's Masters Thesis; Lauren Scharff was her faculty thesis supervisor.