Do You Feel the Same? On the Robustness of Cued-Recall Debriefing for User Experience Evaluation

Cued Recall Debriefing (CRD) is a form of retrospective think aloud approach. It involves re-immersing users to a level where emotional responses are comparable to those experienced during actual interaction with a system. To validate whether the robustness of CRD would vary with the time gap between the actual and recalled event and with the affective state preceding the recall, two empirical studies with altogether 100 participants were conducted. Specifically, participants’ emotions were measured in terms of galvanic skin response (GSR), heart rate (HR), and self-assessment manikin (SAM) rating when they were interacting with an email client seeded with usability problems. The same measures were taken when they viewed the videoed interactions. Two between-subject variables were ‘intervening time’ (from 0 minutes up to 24 hours) and ‘intervening affect’ (images with different valence and arousal). Advanced computational models were applied to optimise the shifting of GSR/HR waves generated at the actual interaction and recall phases, which were found to be significantly correlated. The shifting process is necessary for addressing the memory effect and is a methodological innovation. Overall, CRD proved to be a robust method that can be deployed to a broad range of HCI research and practice contexts.