Do Too Many Response Options Confuse People?

Advice on rating scale construction is ubiquitous on the internet and in the halls of organizations worldwide. The problem is that much of the advice is based not on solid data but rather on conventional wisdom and what’s merely thought to work. Even published papers and books on survey design can present a perspective that

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Rating Scales

Rating Scale Best Practices: 8 Topics Examined

Rating scales have been around for close to a century. It’s no wonder there are many questions about best practices and pitfalls to avoid. And like any topic that’s been around for that long, there are urban legends, partial truths, context-dependent findings, and just plain misconceptions about the “right” and “wrong” way to use and

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Sliders

Are Sliders More Sensitive than Numeric Rating Scales?

Sliders are a type of visual analog scale that can be used with many online survey tools such as our MUIQ platform. The literature on their overall effectiveness is mixed (Roster et al., 2015). On the positive side, evidence indicates that sliders might be more engaging to respondents. On the negative side, evidence also indicates

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How to Code Errors in Unmoderated Studies

Errors can provide a lot of diagnostic information about the root causes of UI problems and the impact such problems have on the user experience. The frequency of errors—even trivial ones—also provides a quantitative description of the performance of a task. The process of observing and coding errors is more time-consuming and dependent on researcher

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Rating Scales: Myth vs. Evidence

There’s a lot of conventional wisdom floating around the Internet about rating scales. What you should and shouldn’t do. Best practices for points, labels, and formats. It can be hard to differentiate between science-backed conclusions and just practitioner preferences. In this article, we’ll answer some of the more common questions that come up about rating

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Is Usability Testing Effective?

Questioning the effectiveness of usability testing may sound like a relic from the past. In the early years of industrial usability engineering, there was a constant need to justify the activity of (and your job in) usability testing. The book Cost-Justifying Usability (Bias & Mayhew, 2005) speaks to this. Usability testing has since gained significant

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What Is a Strong Correlation?

Smoking causes cancer. Warnings on cigarette labels and from health organizations all make the clear statement that smoking causes cancer. But how do we know? Smoking precedes cancer (mostly lung cancer). People who smoke cigarettes tend to get lung and other cancers more than those who don’t smoke. We say that smoking is correlated with cancer.

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How Harmful Is the Net Promoter Score?

The Net Promoter Score (NPS) is widely used. But it’s not necessarily widely loved. Some people are quite critical of the Net Promoter Score. Jared Spool wrote a strong critique of the NPS  and Gerry McGovern largely agreed. When I followed up with Jared about his thoughts, he felt that “UX researchers should not use

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Measuring the Reliability of the Net Promoter Score

Measuring the Reliability of the Net Promoter Score

Your car doesn’t start on some mornings. Your computer crashes at the worst times. Your friend doesn’t show up to your dinner party. If something or someone isn’t reliable, it’s not only a pain but it makes your life less effective and less efficient. And what is true for people and products is true for

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How Large Is the Evaluator Effect in Usability Testing

How Large Is the Evaluator Effect in Usability Testing?

Uncovering usability problems is at the heart of usability testing. Problems and insights can be uncovered from observing participants live in a usability lab, using heuristic evaluations, or watching videos of participants. But if you change the person looking for the problems (the evaluator), do you get a different set of problems? The Evaluator Effect

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