Attributes of Interaction Aesthetics

Understanding Users’ Experiences on Touch Devices

Mati MõttusTallinn University

School of Digital TechnologiesResearch seminar on 13.04.2016

AbstractReview of recent publications on aesthetics field reveals growing interest towards aesthetics of interaction. Many previous works state that, besides their beauty of appearance, things can also be perceived beautiful in use. However, fewer studies address the evaluation of interaction aesthetics (or aesthetics of use) apart of aesthetics of appearance.

Current study tries to fill this gap by proposing questionnaire items for evaluating interaction aesthetics. Users' aesthetic perceptions were studied during interactions with touch devices. Repertory grid technique (RGT) was used to elicit aesthetics-related constructs after users have tried out 9 selected interaction episodes. As a result, 21 participants were able to elicit 134 personal constructs. These constructs were then grouped by similarity and named with suitable semantic differentials, suitable for use in aesthetics evaluation questionnaire.

Further research perspective could be coming up with the set of modified attributes, suitable for different fields of interaction: e.g. tangible interaction, interactive art, impaired people's interactions, implicit interactions, etc.

IntroductionProblem: mostly the appearance of interface is addressed while evaluating aesthetics. No tools for evaluating aesthetics of interaction apart from aesthetics of appearance.

Question: Why is interaction process perceived aesthetical?

Goal: describe the attributes of interaction aesthetics.

(Mõttus2015)

Concerns: diversity of UXIndividual aesthetic perception is diverse. See figure (Karapanos 2010).

How diversity affects the results?

Diverse individual experiences make the aesthetics hard to explain for larger groups.

What factors were addressed in current study?

● Individual - all data analysed individually● Product - diverse episodes and apps

selected (stimuli)

Time and situation were intentionally kept constant.

StimuliRequirements

● Touch interactions in popular free mobile applications○ Why touch devices?○ Why popular and free?

● Short episodes of interaction with no specific task or goal. E.g: tap to select, swipe to scroll, slide to navigate

● Set of 9, 12 or 15 possibly diverse experiences○ Why 9, 12 or 15○ How to evaluate diversity?

StimuliSelection

● Google Play store’s top 100 free apps retrieved● 230 episodes extracted● Episodes evaluated --- 11 interaction (Lenz2013) attributes used to assess diversity of UX● 50 most suitable episodes extracted● 50 selected episodes evaluated by second expert● Interrater agreement calculated and 28 most agreed episodes extracted● Factor analysis for determining 9 most suitable episodes● MDS over interaction attributes was used to visualize diversity of these episodes

Factor analysis

11 interaction attributes were represented as 5 factors. (PCA). Diverse episodes were considered those which most contribute to some certain factor, but don’t load much to others. Max pos and neg scores were considered.

MDS results

Final selection of 9 episodes are marked in yellow. Visualization shows the diversity as the distance between episodes in projection on two-dimensions.

RGT studyStimuli and devices3 Sliding left or right anywhere on the screen to select a menu item

5 Using slide-gesture anywhere on screen for viewing a vehicle in 3D

12 Course of play. Using tap gesture on right or left edge of screen to steer a car accordingly

14 Tap on buttons at lower edge of the screen to select menu items

20 Tap on buttons to select the items in settings menu

27 Turn the device to change screen orientation

42 Slide down and release anywhere on screen to refresh the list

43 Swipe up or down anywhere on screen to scroll the list

48 Slide right or left on playback timeline to rewind or forward the track

ParticipantsConsiderations

● Aesthetic experts○ Art background○ Design background○ Psychology background○ UX background

● Use of lay peoplePilot study was conducted, as a result:

● Use of lay people is fine● IT developers show poor results, tend to be pragmatics oriented● Ability to explain aesthetic perception is rather individual than related to expert background● Genre of interaction (e.g. game type) influences aesthetic appraisal● Art and psychology backgrounds showed better results

RGT studyProcedure1. Participant was invited individually, then suggested to focus on aesthetic interaction procedure

rather than appearance and follow the emotions rather than analyse.2. Collecting demographic data: age, nationality, gender, residence, familiarity with touch devices,

native OS, expertise or profession (e.g. art, psychology, etc.)3. All episodes were tested thoroughly and aesthetic appraisal was collected on 7p Likert scale.4. Groups of three were combined. Cards, representing episodes were used to proceed elicitation of

personal construct.a. Question1: which one of three episodes differs aesthetically from the rest of two?b. Question2: why the selected episode is different from other two?

5. Evaluation of episodes upon a newly elicited construct on 7p Likert scale.

ResultsQualitative:21 participants (9 male, average age 32.0, ranging from 17 to 52) yielded in 134 personal constructs. Each personal construct was elicited as adjective and participants were also asked to name the semantic opposites of that adjective. Elicitation interviews were audio recorded: 15 of 21 elicitation interviews were conducted in Estonian and 6 interviews in English.

Quantitative:● All participants gave aesthetic rating to the episodes. ● Scales of all constructs were agreed and the constructs were evaluated.

ResultsExamples of quantitative data

● Individual - table at the top shows 6 personal constructs, elicited by one individual and the values given by the same individual to all 9 episodes

● Collective - table at the bottom shows aesthetic values, given by study participants to all 9 episodes. Bottom row shows average aesthetic values of these episodes.

episodes’ ID - > 48 43 12 20 27 5 14 42 3

Construct #23 3 4 5 5 6 3 3 7 3

Construct #24 2 3 5 6 6 2 3 3 4

Construct #25 3 4 4 2 1 6 3 2 3

Construct #26 4 7 5 2 1 6 2 2 2

Construct #27 3 3 5 7 6 1 2 3 5

Construct #28 3 5 6 4 6 5 5 7 2

3 5 12 14 20 27 42 43 481 6 6 5 6 5 4 4 5 72 5 6 4 3 5 6 6 5 63 5 7 4 6 4 6 4 6 64 5 7 6 5 2 5 6 6 7

... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ...6 6 6 5 7 4 6 6 7 77 4 6 4 7 4 5 4 7 7

19 5 6 5 3 4 4 5 4 620 4 3 5 2 7 6 3 4 621 4 5 2 6 4 6 1 6 7

Avg: 5.3 5.8 4.4 4.9 4.7 5.5 4.7 5.4 6.4

Results

Qualitative

Constructs were named as semantic differentials. Descriptions were transcribed from audio records of interviews’.

1 "smooth" vs jaggy The construct reportedly relates to user action e.g finger movement: sliding movement (episode 5 and 14) was perceived smooth, tapping (20) felt unsmooth or jaggy.

2 "precise" vs imprecise Precision in coordination means accurateness of reaction and absence of ambiguity of actions. precision in time also means absence of delay. Pushing the buttons (20) was considered precise. Sliding the control (48) and being able to stop wherever wanted was perceived as precise. However scrolling the list (43) with swipe gesture was considered less precise due to inertia.

3 "fast" vs slow Slow means delay in reaction, but the interaction also feels slow when it seems normal to act slowly in this situation. There were no big differences in tested triad, but pushing buttons (20) and flipping pages (3) were perceived sightly faster than sliding the control (48)

4 "playful" vs sedate

Playfulness is explained as possibility/opportunity/freedom to manipulate things. It adds joyful dimension. It is also connected to fun of tinkering (näppida) and play around without purpose or goal. Selecting settings via push buttons (20) is perceived less playful (there is obvious goal and no particular freedom to play around. The episodes with swipe gesture (3, 43) were perceived more playful, even though episode #3 has obvious goal in sight, but it also has the freedom to complete the action everywhere on the screen.

5 "boring" vs exciting Exciting means the creativeness of design. Boring relates to classical and well known solurtions. Episode #48 was considered very excitig and #14 and #27 were extremely boring

AnalysisQualitative:

1. Describing constructs according to interview audio2. Expert sorting of constructs, done individually by 2 experts.

a. Two independent expertsb. A letter, explaining procedure and format of resultsc. Preparation of cards for sortingd. As a result 2 sets of grouping were proposed (one set also included higher level grouping)

3. Analysing the expert sortings, detecting inter-rater discrepancies4. Reaching consensus between experts via making bilateral agreements

a. Naming the aesthetic attributes

See pdf file in appendix

AnalysisQuantitative:

● MDS - mapping of episodes according to newly elicited constructs○ Individual basis○ Overall basis

● Factor analysis (PCA)○ Calculating loadings for proposed attributes○ Further groupings for detecting possible higher level factors○ Biplot of

● Aesthetic correlates, relevance of proposed aesthetic attributes according to RGT data

○ Between proposed attributes and aesthetic appraisal○ Between possible factors and aesthetic appraisal

MDS individualParticipant #5

Biplot with PCA red vectors represent constructs

MDS overallAverage aesthetic value in redQualitative analysis suggests meanings of dimensions:

● Left-right e.g○ Smooth-unsmooth○ Slow-fast○ Delayed-immediate

● Up-down○ Logical-illogical○ Predictable-unpredictable○ Natural-unnatural

More beautiful episodes tend to be on upper left while less beautiful are lower right

Continuation of studyQuestionnaire of evaluating aesthetics of interaction.

● Item generation is completed - the interaction attributes as semantic differentials.

● Validation of scales - planning of online study for validating the items○ Experimental study○ Use of mobile (touch screen) interactions○ Specially prepared stimuli (A beautiful and B ugly interaction episodes)○ Participants > 300

● Refining the scales○ Cleaning items○ Regrouping if necessary

PerspectiveWiden the scope of questionnaire application to tangible interactions (industrial design) and interactions with desktop computers.