Dear All!
I stumbled upon a blog. The author claimed that the ratio "perceived time" to "actual time" while using a system was a good indicator when investigating the User Experience of interactive systems. However, the author did not clarify what it exactly is that we can measure with this. I believe it may somehow be related to "User Engagement". O'Brien & Toms (2008) found indications that the perception of time could be relevant. But when O'Brien & Toms (2010) used items of "perceived time" to develop their "User Engagement Questionnaire" a factor called "Focused Attention" absorbed all items of "Perceived Time". However, they never asked users to estimate the time spent in minutes (not to my knowledge, at least).
All in all, I haven't found any publications corroborating the relationship between "perceived time" and User Engagement or other aspects of User Experience. So, my questions are:
- To what constructs is perceived time related to and how reliable and strong is the relationship?
- Is there any research? Please let me know about any paper you know.
Check out the book, Measuring the User Experience (Second Edition), by William Albert and Thomas Tullis (ISBN: 978-0-12-415781-1 - http://measuringuserexperience.com/). It may shed some light on your question. You might also read, Time Perception during Retrospective and Prospective Paradigms with a Distraction, a Master's Thesis by Kristi L. Lontz.
From my research for my dissertation into using online 3D simulations for learning, I have read many studies that show a correlation between how deeply immersed into the simulation a learner becomes and how quickly time passes according to the learner's perception. This, according to many of the authors, is an indicator for how good a simulation is. The belief being a learner would not "lose track of time" and spend hours in the simulation if it sucked.
You might also be interested in Scott Brown's paper, Time perception and attention: The effects of prospective versus retrospective paradigms and task demands on perceived duration (DOI: 10.3758/BF03198848). This study looked at two groups - one which kept track of their time and one which did not keep track of their time.
Hello All!
First of all: thank you Michael! Your references led to more references and finally some useful insight. Here is what I found:
1. You have to make a difference between retrospective judgements and keeping track of time. When users divert attention to time while doing a task, time perception is completely altered. (10.1098/rstb.2009.0013; see also 10.1080/10447318.2012.676538).
2. The ratio "Perceived time" to clock time is related to mental workload (10.1080/10447318.2012.676538). "It is [...] necessary to distinguish between time-unrelated tasks and time-constrained tasks because an increase in mental workload for these two types of task has opposite effects on perceived time ratios."
3. So far, I found nothing convincing regarding a regarding the relation of engagement and perceived time.
I would appreciate any input on the subject.
Regards,
Jan
I'd agree that what a user (hate that term) says and what they do or have done are nearly always different.
How does one measure "immersion". Direct observation?
User Engagement is a multi-faceted construct still in discussion. Perceived Time Vs. Actual Time Spent seems to be related more to the FLOW THEORY where the user loses track of time.
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