Blog Update #6

Blog Update #6a — Pilot

Our pilot test helped us refine how we presented the tasks to our participants. For example, not all of our participants were aware that “Hugh Dempster Pavilion” was also known as “DMP”, and thus when presenting them the tasks this needed to be clarified. In addition, despite intending to time the duration that each task would take, we failed to clearly indicate what exact step would be considered the “start” of a task, and when it would be marked as “completed”. So we revisited these tasks and made sure we all timed the tasks in the same way. Piloting our experiment also helped us work out how we would actually be able to screen record the mobile interfaces while capturing external audio. We ended up being able to do these simultaneously through the same app, streamlining the overall process. Overall, there weren’t significant changes made to our protocol or our supplementary materials, but we were able to work out some kinks to ensure our actual experiments were conducted as smoothly as possible.

Blog Update #6b — Experiment Abstract

We held 10 experiments with the goal of understanding the difference in user experiences when using the UBC Lost and Found database as opposed to our new prototype. We conducted a 2x2 ANOVA with our time data for the first two hypotheses, and while not finding any significant results in our quantitative analysis regarding the efficiency of the applications, there were significant differences found for our one way ANOVA. Specifically, users were more satisfied with the security aspects of our presented prototype compared to the original UBC Lost and Found database, as noted through the qualitative data for our third hypothesis. Overall, it seems that the strength of our prototype did not lie in efficiency as we had anticipated, but rather, in satisfaction for security, and other aspects such as effectiveness and findability which we would have to further analyze to fully understand.

Blog Update #6c :

No updates to supplementary experiment materials.