Introduction - Measuring the User Experience: Collecting, Analyzing, and Presenting Usability Metrics - page 2

Our intention is to make this topic a practical, how-to guide about mea-
suring the user experience of any product. We aren't going to give you a lot of
formulas; in fact, there are very few. The statistics are fairly limited, and the cal-
culations can be done easily in Excel or some other common software package
or web application. Our intention is to give you the tools you need to evaluate
the user experience of nearly any type of product, without overwhelming you
with unnecessary details.

This topic is both product and technology neutral. The UX metrics we
describe can be used for practically any type of product utilizing nearly any type
of technology. This is one of the great features of UX metrics: they aren't just
for websites or any single technology. For example, task success and satisfaction
are equally valid whether you evaluate a website, a smartphone, or a microwave
oven.

The “half-life” of UX metrics is much greater than any specific design or
technology. Despite all the changes in technology, the metrics essentially stay
the same. Some metrics may change with the development of new technolo-
gies to measure the user experience, but the underlying phenomena being mea-
sured don't change. Eye tracking is a great example. Many researchers wanted
a method for determining where exactly someone is looking at any point in
time. Now, with the latest advances in eye-tracking technology, measurement
has become much easier and far more accurate. The same can be said for mea-
suring emotional engagement. New technologies in affective computing allow
us to measure levels of arousal through very unobtrusive skin conductance mon-
itors as well as facial recognition software. This has offered glimpses into the
emotional state of users as they interact with different types of products. These
new technologies for measurement are no doubt extremely useful; however, the
underlying questions we are all trying to answer don't change that much at all.

So why did we write this topic? There's certainly no shortage of topics on
human factors, statistics, experimental design, and usability methods. Some of
those topics even cover the more common UX metrics. Does a topic that focuses
entirely on UX metrics even make sense? Obviously, we think so. In our (hum-
ble) opinion, this topic makes five unique contributions to the realm of user
experience research:

• Wetakea comprehensive look at UX metrics. No other topics review so

many different metrics. We provide details on collecting, analyzing, and
presenting a diverse range of UX metrics.

• This topic takes a practical approach . We assume you're interested in

applying UX metrics as part of your job. We don't waste your time with
unnecessary details. We want you to be able to use these metrics easily
every day.

• Weprovidehelpinmakingthe right decisions about UX metrics. One of

the most difficult aspects of a UX professional's job is deciding whether
to collect metrics and, if so, which ones to use. We guide you through the
decision process so that you find the right metrics for your situation.