The usability observation cap

G. Leitner and S. Plattner

Department of Informatics Systems, University of Klagenfurt, Klagenfurt, Austria

Usability testing of mobile systems suffers one major problem, that devices for observation are disturbing natural interaction with the device or system to be investigated. Within the usability evaluation of a PDA based e-learning platform we developed a prototypical observation framework that could be promising in relation to the problem mentioned above.

The observation framework consists of the following components:

  1. A radio based video camera mounted on a standard baseball cap.
  2. A radio based audio system (microphone / headphones).
  3. A WLAN PDA as a client to run the e-learning platform.

The mentioned parts of the framework are connected to a standard usability lab equipment like mixers, tracking software etc. As mentioned, the framework was designed to support the usability test of a mobile e-learning platform and therefore the performance and usefulness of the system have not been the central focus of investigation and therefore not been evaluated quantitatively. But the qualitative outcome is promising:

None of the 8 test subjects refused to wear the baseball cap or mentioned inconveniences such as disturbance of visual perception, abnormal pressure on the head etc.

  1. The task performance and completion were not obviously negatively influenced by the additional equipment.
  2. Some of the subjects where interested in the cap camera for some more or less funny applications, e.g. observing a relative when she is going to the garden and instructing her what vegetable one wants for lunch. This and similar statements can be interpreted as some kind of ‘liking’ the system.

Although the system seems promising, there are some problems that are to be solved or enhanced in future versions of the system. These problems are mostly of technical nature, e.g. interferences of WLAN and radio signals.

Paper presented at Measuring Behavior 2005 , 5th International Conference on Methods and Techniques in Behavioral Research, 30 August - 2 September 2005, Wageningen, The Netherlands.

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