USING GSR TO DETECT FRUSTRATION CAUSED BY USABILITY PROBLEMS: A COMPARATIVE STUDY OF BLIND AND SIGHTED USERS

Abstract

Background: The dominance of smartphones in our daily lives has become unavoidable. Individuals rely on mobile phones to complete a variety of tasks, whether minor or major. The reliance on mobile phones is not limited to a specific group and is used by people with a wide range of physical and mental abilities. However, the problem stems from developers who design their websites for a specific group while overlooking others, such as people with vision impairment. This leads to issues with accessibility and usability, which frustrates users. When users are unable to achieve the desired result, they become frustrated. Excessive frustration can lead to psychological problems such as aggressive behavior and depression. Aim: The aim is to understand how individuals react physiologically to usability problems and to compare the physiological responses of sighted and visually impaired users when confronted with usability and accessibility issues. The galvanic skin response (GSR) is the signal used to detect frustration. Method: The study consists of 13 visually impaired (VI) and 16 sighted participants. The experiment used a 4X2 within-subject design, where participants completed four tasks; each task was completed in a frustrating and non-frustrating format while wearing an Empatica E4 wristband to collect the GSR signal. The frustrating format includes induced frustration while the non- frustrating task is normal. The frustrating elements for the sighted participants are page refresh and a slow internet connection, while for the VI participants the frustrating elements are an unsearchable dropdown list and an inaccessible menu. The common usability problems between the sighted and VI participants are popup ads and session timeout. Results: There’s no significant difference between the frustrating and non-frustrating types of interaction for the VI participants. There was a significant difference between the frustrating and non-frustrating types of interaction when experiencing a session timeout for the sighted participants. When comparing the physiological responses of sighted and VI participants, the results show that the arousal level is significantly higher in VI than sighted participants, the main causing factor is accessibility rather than usability. Conclusion: Evidence-based results show that accessibility issues can be more frustrating than usability issues for VI individuals, emphasizing the importance of following accessibility guidelines. Sighted individuals were only physiologically frustrated by the session timeout.

Date of Award	2022
Original language	American English
Awarding Institution	HBKU College of Science and Engineering