An exploration of the relation between expectations and user experience

TY - JOUR

T1 - An exploration of the relation between expectations and user experience

AU - Michalco, Jaroslav

AU - Simonsen, Jakob Grue

AU - Hornbæk, Kasper

PY - 2015/9/2

Y1 - 2015/9/2

N2 - Before using an interactive product, people form expectations about what the experience of use will be like. These expectations may affect both the use of the product and users’ attitudes toward it. This article briefly reviews existing theories of expectations to design and perform two crowdsourced experiments that investigate how expectations affect user experience measures. In the experiments, participants saw a primed or neutral review of a simple online game, played it, and rated it on various user experience measures. Results suggest that when expectations are confirmed, users tend to assimilate their ratings with their expectations; conversely, if the product quality is inconsistent with expectations, users tend to contrast their ratings with expectations and give ratings correlated with the level of disconfirmation. Results also suggest that expectation disconfirmation can be used more widely in analyses of user experience, even when the analyses are not specifically concerned with expectation disconfirmation.

AB - Before using an interactive product, people form expectations about what the experience of use will be like. These expectations may affect both the use of the product and users’ attitudes toward it. This article briefly reviews existing theories of expectations to design and perform two crowdsourced experiments that investigate how expectations affect user experience measures. In the experiments, participants saw a primed or neutral review of a simple online game, played it, and rated it on various user experience measures. Results suggest that when expectations are confirmed, users tend to assimilate their ratings with their expectations; conversely, if the product quality is inconsistent with expectations, users tend to contrast their ratings with expectations and give ratings correlated with the level of disconfirmation. Results also suggest that expectation disconfirmation can be used more widely in analyses of user experience, even when the analyses are not specifically concerned with expectation disconfirmation.

U2 - 10.1080/10447318.2015.1065696

DO - 10.1080/10447318.2015.1065696

M3 - Journal article

SN - 1044-7318

VL - 31

SP - 603

EP - 617

JO - International Journal of Human-Computer Interaction

JF - International Journal of Human-Computer Interaction

IS - 9

ER -