To have a reliable and valid response scale, people need to understand what they’re responding to. A poorly worded question, an unclear response item, or an inadequate response scale can create additional error in measurement. Worse yet, the error may be systematic rather than random, so it would result in unmodeled bias rather than just
We’ve written extensively about the System Usability Scale (SUS). It’s the most widely used and cited questionnaire for measuring the perception of the user experience. But likely the second most widely used and cited questionnaire, with over 2,000 citations, is the Post Study System Usability Questionnaire (PSSUQ). It also goes by the name of Computer
The NASA TLX is a multi-item questionnaire developed in 1980 by Sandra Hart. NASA is, of course, the US-based space agency famous for the one giant leap for mankind. The TLX stands for Task Load Index and is a measure of perceived workload. If you conduct mostly digital UX research for consumers (websites and software), you
It seems like each year introduces a new measure or questionnaire. Like a late-night infomercial, some are even touted as the next BIG thing, like the NPS was. New questionnaires and measures are a natural part of the evolution of measurement (especially measuring difficult things such as human attitudes). It’s a good thing. I’ll often
Our attitudes both reflect and affect our actions. What we think affects what we do and what we do affects what we think. It’s not a perfect relationship of course. What people say or think doesn’t always directly correspond to actions in easily predictable ways. Understanding and measuring user attitudes early and often can provide
When done well, surveys are an excellent method for collecting data quickly from a geographically diverse population of users, customers, or prospects. In an earlier article, I described 15 types of the most common rating scale items and when you might use them. While rating scales are an important part of a survey, they aren’t
What does 4.1 on a 5-point scale mean? Or 5.6 on a 7-point scale? Interpreting rating scale data can be difficult in the absence of an external benchmark or historical norms. A popular technique used often by marketers to interpret rating scale data is the so-called “top box” and “top-two box” scoring approach. For example, on
How satisfied are you with your life? How happy are you with your job or your marriage? Are you extroverted or introverted? It’s hard to capture the fickle nature of attitudes and constructs in any measure. It can be particularly hard to do that with just one question or item. Consequently, psychology, education, marketing, and
Surveys often suffer from having too many questions. Many items are redundant or don’t measure what they intend to measure. Even worse, survey items are often the result of “design by committee” with more items getting added over time to address someone’s concerns. Let’s say an organization uses the following items in a customer survey:
Many researchers are familiar with the SUS, and for good reason. It’s the most commonly used and widely cited questionnaire for assessing the perception of the ease of using a system (software, website, or interface). Despite being short—10 items—the SUS has a fair amount of redundancy given it only measures one construct (perceived usability). While
