Results

After writing the Best Practice Model methodology document, we conducted a usability test based on it. From this we gathered some interesting results.

One for the most interesting things is that after using the website, users personal biases towards brands overrode some of the gathered metrics. One participant with a strong affinity to the Apple brand rated their website above that of HTC, despite completing the tasks quicker and easier than on the HTC website.

The other interesting result was that the participant with the lowest baseline emotional engagement was the only one who significantly changed their view on a website after using it.

The next step it to write up a report that covers what we have done and our conclusions on the project as a whole.

Emotional Engagement Technologies

The group has now tested both the Neurosky, Eye Tracker and Face Reader technologies. The FaceReader shows a range of emotions that the user experiences whilst being filmed. Problems were encountered with calibrating the software so that it measured neutral when the participant's expression was neutral. This was best evidenced by myself, when I used it the emotion that was read was 'angry' a lot of the time!

The FaceReader analyses a section of a recording of a person's face, showing what emotions they are currently displaying. However, it does not show how emotionally engaged a user is, which is want is more important for what we are trying to measure.

Tomorrow we hope to look at the technologies and make a decision as to which best serves our needs.

Testing Methodologies

Through research it has been discovered that when conducting emotional engagement testing towards brands, PR companies first test the participants on their brand engagement and then assign them to a group based on their emotional response level. Some people have high emotional engagement towards brands, others much less. By grouping participants in this way, it is possible to see Usability testing with respect to  people's differing emotional engagement levels.

It is proposed that this can feed into the groups research, by pre testing people and working out their prior engagement levels, this will add more quality to the data gained from the usability study.