The word “standardized” conjures memories of high-stakes tests. In the context of UX research, when we talk of standardization, we’re often referring to standardized questionnaires. Standardized questionnaires have gone through the process of psychometric validation. That means the items being used have gone through dozens or hundreds of possible variations, and the final versions are
In the movie 2001: A Space Odyssey (made in 1968), a vision of the future included video conferencing. And 1989’s Back to the Future’s vision of 2015 included not only video conferencing but also getting fired over it. While we may scoff at how hoverboards and flying cars still haven’t arrived, it’s now normal for
Owning stocks or having a brokerage account isn’t just for the ultra-rich. More than half of U.S. households have retirement accounts (IRA or 401k). About 62% of Americans own stocks. About 28% of American adults own cryptocurrencies. People with money invested in major brokerage companies, traditional and crypto, often interact with those companies through their
You’re 25% complete. Still a ways to go. You got a score of 90 out of 100 on a math test. Not bad. You got 1475 on the SAT—the 95th percentile. Awesome! Only 40% of users completed the task. Not great. The average score on a seven-point scale was 5.2. Hmm. Is that good? One
A lot goes into planning a moderated session such as a usability test or an in-depth interview. And recruiting qualified participants is an essential step in making those sessions successful. However, recruiting is time-consuming and often frustrating. There’s a sort of Murphy’s Law in recruiting (and in product demos)—the Stakeholder Corollary: The more stakeholders observing,
Poor layout, irrelevant ads, overwhelming videos: websites can be cluttered. Clutter can lead to a poor user experience. Poor experiences repel users. So how does one measure clutter? Earlier, we did a deep dive into the literature to see how clutter has been first defined and then measured. We found the everyday concept of clutter
Clutter, clutter everywhere, nor any questionnaire to measure. In a previous article, we described our search for a measure of perceived clutter in academic literature and web posts, but we were left unquenched. We found that the everyday conception of clutter includes two components that suggest different decluttering strategies: the extent to which needed objects
What sample size should you use for a problem discovery (formative) usability study? In practice, the answer is based on both statistics AND logistics. A statistical formula will tell you an optimal number to select. But the real-world logistical constraints of budgets, recruiting challenges, and time will often dictate the maximum number of participants you
“How many participants should you run in a usability study?” How many times have you heard that question? How many different answers have you heard? After you sift through the non-helpful ones, probably the most common answer you’ve heard is five. You might have also heard that these “magic 5” users can uncover 85% of
In an earlier article, we demonstrated how it’s completely permissible from a statistical perspective to report numbers when studies have very small sample sizes (fewer than ten people). When you use numbers, you can present them as raw numbers, fractions, or percentages. You can present them in a report, on a train, or on a
