A Study On Mobile-based Remote User Research Methods And Tools

With the development of communication technology and network, we have entered into an era of mobile computing. Mobile device user experience research has become increasingly important, but at the same time, some methods were used to study the static environment can not be applied to mobile environment. Outdoor experience are much richer in the mobile computing era. Motivation, usage, context are all important elements of user experience in the mobile environment. However, the traditional method can not manage to collect this kind of information, as a result, data gathering has become a huge challenge for researchers to study nowadays. Fortunately, some features of the mobile devices such as intelligence and sensors make it possible to collect information of user experience by traditional methods assisted with mobile equipment. This paper proposes a Mobile Remote User Experience Methods base on the characteristics of mobile devices. The method combines two recording ways of user experience feedback and context logging automatically, and two control ways of wizard of oz and context aware together. A tool named CKREAL was produced to assist with the method which runs under the platform. We iterate this method and tool by two case studies. The first case is a prototype system named WENWEN which uses mobile remote user experience methods, running on the mobile platform. Researchers can get feedback information on supporting of this method and the recording tool. The second one is a research on learning behavior of college students. Users record the experience with the CKREAL at all times and places. As a result, the researchers can acquire real time information and trigger recording behavior. We improve the method and system frame through these two tests. The results are positive, and shows that it is a ideal supplement to the traditional method.