designing interactive edits for u.s. electronic economic surveys and censuses: issues and guidelines...
TRANSCRIPT
Designing Interactive Edits for U.S. Electronic Economic Surveys
and Censuses: Issues and Guidelines
Elizabeth M. Nichols, Elizabeth D. Murphy, Amy E. Anderson, Diane K. Willimack and Richard S. Sigman
U.S. Census Bureau
Presented at the UNECE Statistical Data Editing Work Session, May 16-18, 2005, Ottawa, Canada
Outline
Background
Edit design questions
Usability testing
Guidelines
Examples of Edits
Future Directions
Background
Traditional post-collection editing– Some conditions that trigger edit checks:
• Missing value(s)• Inconsistent values• Questionable value(s)• Technically impossible value(s)
Catch edit failures earlier:Move editing to the electronic form
How should we design the edits?
1. When should the electronic questionnaire run the edits?
2. How should the respondent be notified of an edit failure?
3. Where should the electronic questionnaire display the edits?
4. How should we phrase the edit message?5. How should the edits look in terms of font,
color, brightness?
How we answer those questions
Method: Usability testing
at establishments and in the usability lab – Think-aloud procedure– Observation of user behavior– Self-reported ratings of satisfaction
Results: Recommendations for design changes
Preliminary guidelines
1. When should the electronic questionnaire run the edits?
Guidelines: – Perform edit checks immediately.– For inter-item edits, perform those after all the
items in the edit have been entered.– Check for missing data at the end.– Allow edits to be run iteratively
Preliminary guidelines
2. How should the respondent be notified of an edit failure?
Guidelines: – Give the respondent as much control as
possible. • No unsolicited pop-up messages.
– Avoid violating user expectations for single-purpose functions.
Preliminary guidelines
3. Where should the electronic questionnaire display the edits?
Guidelines: • Clearly identify which edit failure goes with
which item• Provide easy navigating between an edit-
failure list and the associated items.
Preliminary guidelines
4. How should we phrase the edit message?
Guidelines: • Include the item number, a description of the
problem, and an action to take.• Cognitively test message before fielding.
Examples of poorly worded edit messages
“Check for a typing mistake”
“Enter a number between 0 and 200”
Preliminary Guidelines
5. How should the edits look in terms of font, color, brightness?
Guidelines: • Use standard icons as expected by the
business respondent
Future Direction
- Challenge to use guidelines
- Need for experimental results
- Update and add to guidelines
- 508 accessibility compliance
- Edit design for a batch input
Questions?
Contact Elizabeth Nichols
Paper:
http://www.census.gov/srd/papers/pdf/rsm2
005-03.pdf