Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
Feed-forward - Top-down progression of graphing:
In the constructive iScale one
starts by plotting points in a serial order; in the value-account iScale a line connects
the start with the end of the timeline using the participant's response to the question
asked in the first step about how product perception and evaluation has changed
from the moment of purchase to the present. The participant is asked to proceed by
splitting the full segment into smaller parts.
Concurrent - Non-concurrent reporting:
The constructive approach assumes that
the affective, the value-charged component of a past experience can only be re-
constructed from recalled contextual details of the event. On the contrary, the value-
account approach assumes that individuals recall the value-charged component even
without being able to recall the underlying contextual details. Thus, according to
the constructive approach reporting should be concurrent with graphing, because
reporting will increase the contextual details and, thus, result in richer recall. On
the other hand, in the value-account approach, concurrent reporting might bias or
hinder the process of recalling the value-charged component. Thus, in the construc-
tive iScale the participant is asked to report details of experiences right after a line
segment was added (i.e., drawn). Graphing and reporting proceeds concurrently. In
the value-account iScale, this process is split into two distinct steps: the participant
is first asked to graph the pattern of change over time and only after that she can
report on one or more experiences for each line segment.
In the remainder of the chapter we describe two studies. Study 1 aimed at pro-
viding qualitative insight into the use of iScale and compared its performance to
free-hand graphing. Study 2 compared the two versions of iScale to free recall,
a control condition that does not impose structure on the reconstruction process.
Overall, graphing is expected to provide temporal context for the recall of experi-
enced events. This is expected to increase the amount and test-retest consistency
of the information that the participants are able to recall. This assumption will be
tested in study 2.
5.3
Study 1: Understanding Graphing as a Tool for the
Reconstruction of Experiences
The first study aims at a qualitative understanding of graphing as a support for
the reconstruction of experiences. It compares the two iScale tools to free-hand
graphing.
5.3.1
Method
5.3.1.1
Participants
Twelve graduate students in HCI (7 male, median age 30 years) participated in the
study. They were selected based on the diversity in their educational backgrounds.
Search WWH ::
Custom Search