Measuring the Emotional Impacts of Multimedia eHealth
Abstract
Emotion is critical to how health-related information is perceived and acted upon. This paper shares empirical and methodological insights from an eHealth multimedia usability study involving participants with type 2 diabetes, using a typical sample size for usability studies: n=10. Skin conductance sensors and a slider were used to assess emotional responses toward videos on disease complications. The videos featuring peers elicited trends of stronger emotional responses compared to the other video formats, for both emotion measures. Clustering was used to investigate patterns in slider usage; participants clustered into types characterized as: ‘responsive’, ‘judging’, and ‘unresponsive’. We examined slider and arousal data to estimate immersion and found that half of participants who moved the slider minimally experienced skin conductance spikes, indicating high immersion. We discuss implications for understanding high-impact eHealth multimedia and for measuring immersion and emotions using small samples common in usability studies.
Authors: Danielle M. Lottridge, Catherine H. Y. Yu, Mark Chignell
Published in: Proceedings of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society Annual Meeting (2012)