Emotional testing on Facebook’s user experience

Abstract

This study aims at understanding how a user’s emotions fluctuate when undertaking certain tasks on a software product. Specifically, we will be exploring the difference in the usability aspect of Facebook, concerning frequent Facebook and new Facebook users. This same study can be applied to any software product, before its release. Thus, it will help to analyse whether there is a correlation or not between frequent and new users, in order to improve any software’s user interface design. Through this research, one hopes to acquire insight of how user-friendly the product is for new users when compared to frequent users. Additionally, an investigation will be carried out as to whether there is a correlation in user friendliness between new users and frequent users. Furthermore, the study will help us discern which parts of the brain had the largest difference between groups and discuss the motives behind an individual’s emotional state, with respect to user experience. In today’s software market, a vast number of products are consistently being created and maintained. Testing the software product is the last frontier in analysing and understanding whether the product meets the client’s requirements/expectation. Thus, it is a remarkable insight to be able to discern of how well new individuals would comprehend the software at first hand. The study involves a qualitative study on eighteen participants, nine of which were Facebook users and nine who were non-Facebook users. During the testing procedure, users were asked to complete a number of tasks on Facebook, while their electrical brain activity was recorded using an EEG (electroencephalogram) acquisition system. Through this research, it has been established that there is a substantial statistical difference between Facebook and non-Facebook users. Also, it resulted that there was a significant difference between the central, temporal and occipital lobes of new and frequent users. This result will later be able to assist developers in creating optimal and user-friendly software products.