“Thinking About Thinking Aloud”: An Investigation of Think-Aloud Methods in Usability Testing

Usability has become an imperative aspect of survival on the web, thus, it has always been considered as a crucial aspect of web design. This paper presents the results of a study that compared two think-aloud usability testing methods: the concurrent think-aloud and the retrospective think-aloud methods. Data from task performance, testing experience, and usability problems were collected from 40 participants equally distributed between the two think-aloud conditions. The results found that while the thinking aloud method had no impact on task performance and participants testing experience, participants using the concurrent think-aloud method detected a larger number of minor problems with the test interface than participants using the retrospective think-aloud method. These findings suggest a reason for preferring the concurrent think-aloud method to the retrospective one.

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Obead Alhadreti

Pam Mayhew

Conference

Publication date: July 2016

Publication date (Print): July 2016

Pages: 1-3

Affiliations

[0001]School of Computing Sciences

University of East Anglia

Norwich, NR4 7TJ, UK

College of Computer

Umm Al-Qura University

[0002]School of Computing Sciences

University of East Anglia

Norwich, NR4 7TJ, UK

Article

DOI: 10.14236/ewic/HCI2016.101

SO-VID: 34428be1-d882-48d2-9336-35dcc70b649e

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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 Unported License. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Conference name: Proceedings of the 30th International BCS Human Computer Interaction Conference

Conference acronym: HCI

Conference number: 30

Conference location: Bournemouth University, Poole, UK

Conference date: 11 - 15 July 2016

Conference sponsor: Electronic Workshops in Computing (eWiC)

Conference theme: Fusion

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1477-9358 BCS Learning & Development

Self URI (article page): https://www.scienceopen.com/hosted-document?doi=10.14236/ewic/HCI2016.101

Self URI (journal page): https://ewic.bcs.org/

REFERENCES

C.M. Barnum 2010 Usability Testing Essentials: Ready, Set... Test! San Mateo, CA Morgan Kaufmann
K. A. EricssonH.A. Simon 1993 Protocol Analysis: Verbal Reports as Data. Revised ed. Cambridge MIT Press
K. Hornbaek 2010 ‘Dogmas in the assessment of usability evaluation methods’ Behaviour and Information Technology 29 1 97 111
K. L. NormanE. Panizzi 2006 Levels of automation and user participation in usability testing. Interacting with computers 18 2 246 264
L. W. PeuteN. F. de KeizerM. W. Jaspers 2009 Cognitive evaluation of a physician data query tool for a national ICU registry: comparing two think aloud variants and their application in redesign. Studies in health technology and informatics 160 1 309 313
M. J. Van den HaakM. D.T. de JongP. J. Schellens 2009 ‘Evaluating municipal websites: a methodological comparison of three think-aloud variants.’ Government Information Quarterly. 26 1 193 202

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[1] C.M. Barnum 2010 Usability Testing Essentials: Ready, Set... Test! San Mateo, CA Morgan Kaufmann

[2] K. A. EricssonH.A. Simon 1993 Protocol Analysis: Verbal Reports as Data. Revised ed. Cambridge MIT Press

[3] K. Hornbaek 2010 ‘Dogmas in the assessment of usability evaluation methods’ Behaviour and Information Technology 29 1 97 111

[4] K. L. NormanE. Panizzi 2006 Levels of automation and user participation in usability testing. Interacting with computers 18 2 246 264

[5] L. W. PeuteN. F. de KeizerM. W. Jaspers 2009 Cognitive evaluation of a physician data query tool for a national ICU registry: comparing two think aloud variants and their application in redesign. Studies in health technology and informatics 160 1 309 313

[6] M. J. Van den HaakM. D.T. de JongP. J. Schellens 2009 ‘Evaluating municipal websites: a methodological comparison of three think-aloud variants.’ Government Information Quarterly. 26 1 193 202

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