Children Workload Experience during Usability Evaluation in different Settings Mohammadi A. Khanum PAHER University Udaipur, India Akheela.khanum@gmail.com Munesh C. Trivedi Dehradun Institute of Technology Greater Noida, India Munesh.trivedi@gmail.com Abstract— In this paper, we investigate the effect of physical context on behavior of the testers during usability evaluation. Usability evaluation is performed on 54 children by exposing them to four different settings. The four settings comprise of lab testing using constructive interaction and think-aloud protocol, and field testing using constructive interaction and think-aloud protocol.The behavior of the children is evaluated in terms of the workload they experience. NASA-TLX workload measurement scale is used to assess the subjective workload on the children. The results of the evaluation show partial support to our hypothesis, which says that settings affect the way children behave and perceive a testing situation. Keywords- usability evaluation; children; behavior; physical context; think-aloud; constructive interaction ;NASA-TLX workload; I. INTRODUCTION Context is a term defined differently by different people. For example, Brown et al. [1] define context as “location, identities of the people around the user, the time of the day, season, and temperature”. Ryan et al [2] define context as the “user’s location, environment, identity and time”. Hull et al [3] included the entire environment by defining context to be “aspects of the current situation”. Schilit et al [4] claim that the important aspects of the context are: where you are, who you are with, and what resources are nearby. Dey et al [5] define context to be the “user’s physical, social, emotional or informational state”. When evaluating the usability of any system, the behavior of the user is very important. The factors which may affect the user behavior needs to carefully considered because the result of usability evaluations may vary in different settings where the user may exhibit varying behaviors. Product usability doesn’t take place in a vacuum; rather, it happens in context [6]. The characteristics of the context (the users, tasks, and environment) may be as important in determining usability as the characteristics of the product itself. Changing any relevant aspect of the context of use may change the usability of the product [7]. Physical context comprise of the physical surroundings of the users, it is the location, the place where usability evaluation takes place. Physical context usually refers to the environment in which user is tested. Natural environment is the location of actual use of the system being tested. Usability evaluation taking place in natural environment is called as the field testing. Artificial environment is the simulation of natural environment, sometimes referred to as the controlled environment. Usability evaluation carried out in artificial environment is also referred to as laboratory testing. Studies have shown that, as compared to evaluations involving adult participants, children are mostly affected by the context. Children show varying behavior when they are tested in the laboratory environment and when they are tested in the field. They feel relaxed and confident in their own environment. The importance of the physical context has been explored and studied by several usability researchers. However, there is a lack of coherence in understanding the context through psychological perspective. Therefore, an understanding of the influence of context and how it impacts the process of usability evaluation is needed. In order to understand the relation between the physical context and the individual’s behavior we chose the widely accepted theory of behavior settings. The theory of behavior settings was introduced by Roger Garlock Barker in late 1940s [8]. According to this theory, behavior of an individual is influenced by the environment in which he is. Barker continuously collected empirical data from a small town in Kansas with less than 2000 people from 1947 through 1972 based on which he developed the theory of behavior settings. Behavior settings consist of two elements, behavior, and milieu (setting). Behavior comprises the way the people occupying the behavior setting act towards each other. Milieu is a combination of time, place and things and the milieu of a behavior setting also exist outside of the behavior setting [9]. 2013 International Conference on Communication Systems and Network Technologies 978-0-7695-4958-3/13 $26.00 © 2013 IEEE DOI 10.1109/CSNT.2013.170 796