DrawUX: Web-Based Research Tool for Long-Term User Experience Evaluation Jari Varsaluoma Tampere University of Technology Korkeakoulunkatu 6, P.O. Box 589, FI 33101 Tampere, Finland jari.varsaluoma@tut.fi +358 40 8490856 Ville Kentta Tampere University of Technology Korkeakoulunkatu 6, P.O. Box 589, FI 33101 Tampere, Finland ville.j.kentta@tut.fi ABSTRACT DrawUX is a web-based research tool for retrospective long-term user experience evaluation especially in remote studies. Users sketch a curve and add text comments to report how their experience on a product or service has changed during the time of use. DrawUX provides both quantitative and qualitative data about users’ experiences during a long-term use of a product or service. Author Keywords Long-term user experience; cumulative user experience; user experience evaluation; research tools; retrospective measurement; remote studies ACM Classification Keywords H.5.m. Information interfaces and presentation: Miscellaneous. INTRODUCTION The significance of different user experience (UX) qualities of products or services change over time [2, 4, 5]. UX begins with anticipation before the use of products or services, unfolds during the first experiences and further evolves when products or services find their roles as a part of user’s daily life through learning and familiarization. Providing a positive long-term UX is important for companies, since it is believed to improve customer loyalty, when loyalty is measured as willingness to recommend the product to others [1, 7]. Long-term UX studies where product use is followed for several months are very rare, due to their expensive nature, participant fatigue and loss of time [3]. Conducting a single UX evaluation using a retrospective method can be less laborious for both the researchers and participants, when compared to multiple UX evaluations. Although retrospective studies depend on users’ memories, which can be inaccurate, Norman [9] and Karapanos et al. [6] argue that the memories of our experiences will be reported to others and affect our future behavior, not every actual momentary experience. RELATED WORK User interviews and surveys are traditional methods that can be used in retrospective long-term UX studies, but other methods have also been developed. iScale [6] and UX Curve [7, 8] are two research tools developed for supporting users in retrospectively describing their long- term UX of products or services. iScale is an online survey tool, whereas UX Curve is paper-based. The users are asked to recall the moment when they began using a product or a service and draw a curve describing how their relationship has changed from the first experiences until today. Participants are also asked to add comments on the curve to explain why their opinion has changed. In their study, Karapanos et al. [6] showed that when compared to free recall, sketching a curve with iScale increased the amount and richness of the recalled information. Kujala et al. [8] concluded that UX Curve better supports participants in reporting the hedonic aspects of their experiences when compared to a questionnaire. Also, the improving trend of Attractiveness curve was related to user satisfaction, met expectations and willingness to recommend the product to others [8]. So far neither iScale nor UX Curve has been used in remote studies [6, 7, 8]. When participants are met face to face, it is easier to instruct them how to use the tool. Clear instructions and usability of the tool are of high priority especially in asynchronous remote studies, where researcher cannot instruct participants in real time. iScale is not currently available for UX practitioners in the industry and UX Curve is paper-based, which can be unpractical when conducting international studies. We present DrawUX, a web-based long-term UX research tool especially designed for collecting retrospective UX data in remote studies. DrawUX builds on the previous research performed by Karapanos et al. [6] and Kujala et al. [7, 8]. DRAWUX – RESEARCH TOOL FOR RETROSPECTIVE LONG-TERM USER EXPERIENCE EVALUATION DrawUX is a research tool running on web browsers. The final version of DrawUX will consist of three components: Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. To copy otherwise, or republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. Copyright is held by the author/owner(s). NordiCHI’12, Oct 14-17 2012, Copenhagen, Denmark. ACM 978-1-4503-1482-4/12/10. Copyright is held by the author/owner(s). NordiCHI’12, Oct 14-17 2012, Copenhagen, Denmark. ACM 978-1-4503-1482-4/12/10. 769