Do physiological data relate to traditional usability indexes?

Task performance data and subjective assessment data are widely used as usability measures in the human-computer interaction (HCI) field. Recently, physiology has also been explored as a metric for evaluating usability. However, it is not clear how physiological measures relate to traditional usability evaluation measures. In this paper, we investigated the relationships among three kinds of data: task performance, subjective assessment and physiological measures. We found evidence that physiological data correlate with task performance data in a video game: with a decrease of the task performance level, the normalized galvanic skin response (GSR) increases. In addition, physiological data are mirrored in subjective reports assessing stress level. The research provides an initial step toward establishing a new usability method using physiology as a complementary measure for traditional HCI evaluation.

• Type: Conference
• Year: 2005
• Where: OZCHI
• Authors: Tao Lin, Masaki Omata, Wanhua Hu, Atsumi Imamiya
• Keywords: Computer Human Interaction, OZCHI 2005, Physiological Measures, Task Performance, Task Performance Data