User Experience Design at Sony Ericsson - Introducing the Virtual Pet

Bendek & Miner – Measuring Desirability
Bendek & Miner (2002) work for Microsoft, where their team members often need to know more than if a
product is usable. Traditional usability tests did not yield information on intangible experiences of users like if a
product is fun, desirable and if users would consider buying it. As they already have a usability lab, they decided to
try to develop a set of methods for quickly measuring desirability in a lab setting.8 usability practitioners
brainstormed on how to measure desirability and two interesting ideas where selected and developed further:
The Faces Questionnaire and Product Reaction cards.
The Faces Questionnaire
The idea of using faces in a questionnaire was inspired by the work of psychology professor Paul Ekman, who has
done extensive research on the connection between facial expressions and emotions. Six photographs of a woman
showing ambiguous feelings are shown to users who rate if they think that their feelings on an experience with a
product or service match the feelings displayed or not:
Not
at all
like
this
1 2 3 4 5 6 7
One of the questions from the faces questionnaire.
Very
much
like
this
The result is a questionnaire that uses Likert scales but where topics and anchors should be less dependent on
practitioners, which could reduce bias.
Product Reaction Cards
The other method suggested is based on 118 cards labeled with different reactions that a user can have to a
product or service. After an experience, the cards are shown to users, who are asked to select the cards that best
describe the product and the way using the product made them feel. Following this, the practitioner ask them to
narrow their choice down to 5 cards and to explain why they chose each and one of them.
Accessible Desirable Gets in the way Patronizing Stressful
Appealing Easy to use Hard to use Personal Time-consuming
Attractive Efficient High quality Predictable Time-saving
Busy Empowering Inconsistent Relevant Too technical
Selected words from the set of 118 product reaction cards.
Comments
The faces questionnaires is an interesting attempt to make use of Likert scales without forcing users to accept
topics and anchors specified by practitioners. However, it is not clear exactly what feelings the facial expressions
portray, which could make it hard for designers to make real use of the data gathered. To make the most of this
promising method, the photographs will have to be developed more scientifically so that they with more certainty
can be linked to precise descriptions of emotional states.
The product reaction cards probably have their greatest strength in that users do not actively have to formulate
criticism, but rather make a choice out of many ready-made adjectives. As users tend to give positive critique, the
cards are made up of 60% negative and 40% positive judgments, making it more likely that evaluation is
ecologically relevant. Another exciting use is to let designers choose cards that match their vision and keep track
of how much overlap there is between the two groups. Both these methods offer new ways of making users talk
about their experiences, and it might be valuable to try them for these properties alone.
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