An Exploratory Study Using Electroencephalography (EEG) to Measure the Smartphone User Experience in the Short Term

Abstract

ABSTRACT UX (User experience) can influence important user behaviors, including user preference, purchasing decisions, and customer loyalty. The ability to assess UX during the product trial has practical significance for design and improvement of products. In this article, two smartphones with different UX were selected through a focus group. In the EEG (electroencephalography) experiment, we explored the brain signal of users when using two smartphones to complete three tasks. The brain signal of each participant was recorded through Curry Neuroimaging Suite software (Version 7.0, Compumedics Limited, Abbotsford, Australia) when they were using the smartphones. Then results from behavioral, subjective and neural responses were analyzed. The behavioral results showed that participants completed the three tasks faster by using a smartphone with a higher score of UX. The subjective results showed a significant difference between the two smartphones. The patterns of cortical activity were obtained in the five principal frequency bands, Delta (1–4 Hz), Theta (4–8 Hz), Alpha (8–13 Hz), Beta (13–30 Hz) and Gamma (30–45 Hz). The results indicated that a smartphone with higher scores of UX could evoke stronger relative power of Alpha (fronto-central, parietal and partieto-occipital regions), Delta (frontal region) and Gamma rhythms (C3 site), but weaker relative power of Beta (left central region) and Theta rhythms (frontal and parieto-occipital regions). Also, the correlation analysis showed that there was no significant relationship between EEG and behavioral results. User’s subjective experience had a significant positive correlation with the relative power of Gamma band, but a negative correlation with Beta and Theta bands (approximately significant with p = .078 and p = .071). There were also significant correlations between EEG results and sub-items of UX. Our findings suggest that the difference in EEG may be taken as an evaluating indicator of user perception when using products without interruption.