Abstract
Tools (virtual and physical) currently available for product interactive design are becoming better and more affordable. Thus, it is now easier for designers to apply high degrees of appearance refinement to a prototype at early stages of design. This paper presents the findings of a study investigating the effect of aesthetic fidelity of digital and physical prototypes of a musical metronome device on user’s perception of usability, in a series of experimental trials. The study examined user behavior and subjective user evaluation and emotion. Four groups of users were created and assigned different kind of prototypes (physical or digital with low and high aesthetic fidelity). This paper presents results indicating that there is an effect of aesthetic fidelity on user’s perception of attractiveness and usability in both digital and physical prototypes and that user’s assessment becomes more critical as the prototype gets closer to the real product.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
References
Holzinger, A.: Usability Engineering for Software Developers. Communications of the ACM 48(1), 71–74 (2005)
Lewis, J.R.: Usability testing. In: Salvendy, G. (ed.) Handbook of Human Factors and Ergonomics, pp. 1275–1316. John Wiley, New York (2006)
Buur, J., Bagger, K.: Replacing Usability Testing with User Dialogue. Communications of the ACM 42(5), 63–66 (1999)
Nielsen, J.: Usability engineering. Morgan Kaufmann, Amsterdam (1993)
Engelberg, D., Seffah, A.: A Framework for Rapid Mid-Fidelity Prototyping of Web Sites. In: IFIP World Computer Congress 2002. Kluwer Academic Publishers, Montréal (2002)
Vu, K., Proctor, R.W.: Web site design and evaluation. In: Salvendy, G. (ed.) Handbook of Human Factors and Ergonomics, pp. 1317–1343. John Wiley, New York (2006)
Snyder, C.: Paper Prototyping: The Fast and Easy Way to Define and Refine User Interfaces. Morgan Kaufmann Publishers, San Francisco (2003)
Sauer, J., Sonderegger, A.: The Influence of Prototype Fidelity and Aesthetics of Design in Usability Tests: Effects on User Behaviour, Subjective Evaluation and Emotion. Applied Ergonomics 40, 670–677 (2009)
Tullis, T.S.: High-Fidelity Prototyping Throughout the Design Process. In: Proceedings of the Human Factors Society 34th Annual Meeting, p. 266. Human Factors Society, Santa Monica (1990)
Sefelin, R., Tscheligi, M., Giller, V.: Paper Prototyping - What is it Good For?: A Comparison of Paper- and Computer-Based Low-Fidelity Prototyping. In: CHI 2003 Extended Abstracts on Human Factors in Computing Systems. ACM, Ft. Lauderdale (2003)
Virzi, R.A., Sokolov, J.L., Karis, D.: Usability Problem Identification Using Both Low- and High-Fidelity Prototypes. In: Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems: Common Ground, pp. 236–243. ACM Press, Vancouver (1996)
McCurdy, M., Connors, C., Pyrzak, G., Kanefsky, B., Vera, A.: Breaking the Fidelity Barrier: An Examination of our Current Characterization of Prototypes and an Example of a Mixed-Fidelity Success. In: Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, pp. 1233–1242. ACM, New York (2006)
Youn-kyung, L., Apurva, P., Subashini, P., Shweta, A.: Comparative Analysis of High and Low-Fidelity Prototypes for More Valid Usability Evaluations of Mobile Devices. In: NordiCHI 2006, Oslo, Norway, pp. 14–18 (2006)
Sonderegger, A., Sauer, J.: The Influence of Design Aesthetics in Usability Testing: Effects on User Performance and Perceived Usability. Applied Ergonomics 41, 403–410 (2010)
Jordan, P.W.: An Introduction to Usability. Tylor & Francis, Lodon (1998)
Wickens, C.D., Hollands, J.G.: Engineering Psychology and Human Performance. Prentice-Hall, Upper Saddle River (2000)
Brooke, J.: SUS: A Quick and Dirty Usability Scale. In: Jordan, P.W., Thomas, B., Weerdmeester, B.A., McClelland, I.L. (eds.) Usability Evaluation in Industry, pp. 189–194. Taylor & Francis, London (1996)
Ollermann, F.: Evaluation von Hypermedia-Anwendungen: Entwicklung und Validierung eines Instruments. Unpublished Diploma thesis. Institute of Work and Organisational Psychology, University of Osnabrück, Germany (2001)
Reicherts, M., Salamin, V., Maggiori, C., Pauls, K.: Psychometric characteristics of a computer-based monitoring system for emotion processing and affective states. In: Proceedings of the 10th Spanish Conference on Biometrics, Oviedo, May 25-27 (2005)
Greenberg, S., Fitchett, C.: Phidgets: Easy Development of Physical Interfaces through Physical Widgets. In: UIST: ACM Symposium on User Interface Software and Technology, pp. 209–218. ACM, New York (2001)
Ballagas, R., Ringel, M., Stone, M., Borchers, J.: iStuff: a Physical User Interface Toolkit for Ubiquitous Computing Environments. In: SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, Ft Lauderdale, Florida, pp. 537–544 (2003)
Klemmer, S.R., Li, L., Lin, J., Landay, J.A.: Papier-Mâché: Toolkit Support for Tangible Input. In: CHI 2004: Proceedings SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, pp. 399–406. ACM Press, New York (2004)
Nakarada-Kordich, I., Lobb, B.: Effect of Perceived Attractiveness of Web Interface Design on Visual Search of Web Sites. In: Proceedings CHINZ 2005, Auckland, July 6-8, pp. 25–27 (2005)
Brady, L., Phillips, C.: Aesthetics and usability: A look at color and balance. Usability News 5, 1–4 (2003)
Tractinsky, N.: Aesthetics and Apparent Usability: Empirically Assessing Cultural and Methodological Issues. In: Proceedings of the CHI, pp. 115–122. ACM, New York (1997)
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2013 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg
About this paper
Cite this paper
Rueda, D., Hoto, R., Conejero, A. (2013). Study of the Influence of Prototype Aesthetic Fidelity (A Realism Factor) in Usability Tests. In: Holzinger, A., Ziefle, M., Hitz, M., Debevc, M. (eds) Human Factors in Computing and Informatics. SouthCHI 2013. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 7946. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-39062-3_8
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-39062-3_8
Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg
Print ISBN: 978-3-642-39061-6
Online ISBN: 978-3-642-39062-3
eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)