Jennifer Romano, PhD

Videos are often used in web surveys to assess attitudes. While including videos may allow researchers to test immediate reactions, there may be issues associated with displaying videos that are overlooked. In this article, we examine the effects of using video stimuli on responses in a probability-based web survey. Specifically, we evaluate the association between demographics, mobile device usage, and the ability to view videos; differences in ad recall based on whether respondents saw a… Show more

Videos are often used in web surveys to assess attitudes. While including videos may allow researchers to test immediate reactions, there may be issues associated with displaying videos that are overlooked. In this article, we examine the effects of using video stimuli on responses in a probability-based web survey. Specifically, we evaluate the association between demographics, mobile device usage, and the ability to view videos; differences in ad recall based on whether respondents saw a video or still images of the video; whether respondents’ complete viewing of videos is related to presentation order; and the data quality of follow-up questions to the videos as a function of presentation order and complete viewing. Overall, we found that respondents using mobile browsers were less likely to be able to view videos in the survey. Those who could view videos were more likely to indicate recall compared to those who viewed images, and videos that were shown later in the survey were viewed in their entirety less frequently than those shown earlier. These results directly pertain to the legitimacy of using videos in web surveys to gather data about attitudes. Show less

Social media is increasingly important in daily life and is an especially important social interaction mechanism for young people. Although research has been conducted evaluating user types based on motives for using social media, no such framework has been extended to social media websites. We extend previous research by evaluating the underlying structure of social media website usage motivations using a 13 item survey and evaluations from 19 different social media websites administered to… Show more

Social media is increasingly important in daily life and is an especially important social interaction mechanism for young people. Although research has been conducted evaluating user types based on motives for using social media, no such framework has been extended to social media websites. We extend previous research by evaluating the underlying structure of social media website usage motivations using a 13 item survey and evaluations from 19 different social media websites administered to 1686 young Americans. Using a multidimensional scaling approach, we uncover 2 major motive dimensions underlying social media website use: fun-related and content-specific. Based on the derived dimensions, we generate a graphical “quadrant” system for classifying social media websites and depict all 19 social media sites based on their quadrant. We propose that our quadrant system can be used by other researchers to further refine understanding of social media website usage motives. Show less

Romano Bergstrom, J. C., Keaton, S., Carvalho, R., Mendelson, J. (2012). Usability Issues and User Experience Evaluation of Surveys.  Panel presentation at the User Focus conference, Washington, DC, October 2012.

This paper demonstrates the benefits and challenges of
working collaboratively with designers and developers while
conducting iterative usability testing during the course of
Web site design. Four rounds of usability testing were
conducted using materials of increasing realism to represent
the user interface of a public government site: 1) low-fidelity
paper prototypes; 2) medium-fidelity, non-clickable HTML
images; and 3) and 4) high-fidelity, partially-clickable… Show more

This paper demonstrates the benefits and challenges of
working collaboratively with designers and developers while
conducting iterative usability testing during the course of
Web site design. Four rounds of usability testing were
conducted using materials of increasing realism to represent
the user interface of a public government site: 1) low-fidelity
paper prototypes; 2) medium-fidelity, non-clickable HTML
images; and 3) and 4) high-fidelity, partially-clickable Web
pages. Through three rounds of usability testing, usability
increased, but in the fourth round, usability declined.
Iterative testing enabled evaluators to collect quantitative
and qualitative data from typical users, address usability
issues, and test new, revised designs throughout the design
process. This study demonstrates the challenges and value
of working collaboratively with designers and developers to
create tasks, collect participant data, and create and test
solutions to usability issues throughout the entire cycle of
user-interface design. Show less

Ensuring one’s Web site is usable is essential to ensuring an effective, efficient and satisfying experience for users. In a review of 12 years of Web site usability tests at the US Census Bureau, the most prevalent usability issues were discovered. The majority of issues across all the tests concerned Web site navigation, text and terminology, user expectations and Web site organization. This paper describes the top 10 usability issues and provides recommendations for avoiding such issues.

We examined whether college-age video game players and musicians are better than controls at implicit sequence learning in the Alternating Serial Reaction Time Task. People learn to use subtle sequence regularities to respond more accurately and quickly to predictable versus non-predictable events. Although previous studies have shown experts’ enhanced processing speed and perception, this is the first to demonstrate that people who regularly play video games or a musical instrument showed… Show more

We examined whether college-age video game players and musicians are better than controls at implicit sequence learning in the Alternating Serial Reaction Time Task. People learn to use subtle sequence regularities to respond more accurately and quickly to predictable versus non-predictable events. Although previous studies have shown experts’ enhanced processing speed and perception, this is the first to demonstrate that people who regularly play video games or a musical instrument showed greater implicit sequence learning, suggesting that experience playing games or music may improve the efficiency with which people learn sequential regularities in the environment. Show less

Procedural skills such as riding a bicycle and playing a musical instrument play a central role in daily life. Such skills are learned gradually and are retained throughout life. The present study investigated 1-year retention of procedural skill in a version of the widely used serial reaction time task (SRTT) in young and older motor-skill experts and older controls in two experiments. The young experts were college-age piano and action video-game players, and the older experts were piano… Show more

Procedural skills such as riding a bicycle and playing a musical instrument play a central role in daily life. Such skills are learned gradually and are retained throughout life. The present study investigated 1-year retention of procedural skill in a version of the widely used serial reaction time task (SRTT) in young and older motor-skill experts and older controls in two experiments. The young experts were college-age piano and action video-game players, and the older experts were piano players. Previous studies have reported sequence-specific skill retention in the SRTT as long as 2 weeks but not at 1 year. Results indicated that both young and older experts and older non-experts revealed sequence-specific skill retention after 1 year with some evidence that general motor skill was retained as well. These findings are consistent with theoretical accounts of procedural skill learning such as the procedural reinstatement theory as well as with previous studies of retention of other motor skills. Show less

The U.S. population is increasing, people are living longer, technology is moving forward, and the amount of older adults using computers is greater than ever. The percentage of older adults who are connecting to the Internet has grown more than any other age group. However, Web sites are often not designed with older adults in mind, and the cognitive difficulties that are inherent with age are often not taken into consideration. Using Census Bureau data, this paper addresses changes in… Show more

The U.S. population is increasing, people are living longer, technology is moving forward, and the amount of older adults using computers is greater than ever. The percentage of older adults who are connecting to the Internet has grown more than any other age group. However, Web sites are often not designed with older adults in mind, and the cognitive difficulties that are inherent with age are often not taken into consideration. Using Census Bureau data, this paper addresses changes in population and technology, and using eye-tracking data from a usability study conducted at the Census Bureau, this paper demonstrates age-related differences in Web site performance. Implications and future directions for research are discussed. Show less

Implicit learning is thought to underlie the acquisition of many skills including reading. Previous research has shown that some forms of implicit learning are reduced in individuals with dyslexia (e.g., sequence learning), whereas other forms are spared (e.g., spatial context learning). However, it has been proposed that dyslexia-related motor dysfunction may have contributed to the implicit sequence learning deficits reported earlier. To assess implicit sequence learning in the absence of a… Show more

Implicit learning is thought to underlie the acquisition of many skills including reading. Previous research has shown that some forms of implicit learning are reduced in individuals with dyslexia (e.g., sequence learning), whereas other forms are spared (e.g., spatial context learning). However, it has been proposed that dyslexia-related motor dysfunction may have contributed to the implicit sequence learning deficits reported earlier. To assess implicit sequence learning in the absence of a motor sequence, 16 young adults diagnosed with dyslexia (20.6 ± 1.5 years) and 18 healthy controls (20.8 ± 2.0 years) completed a triplet frequency learning task (TRIP) that involved learning a sequential
regularity in which the location of certain events followed a repeating pattern, but motor responses did not. Participants also completed the spatial contextual cueing task (SCCT), which involved learning a spatial regularity in which the location of distractors in some visual arrays predicted the target location. In addition, neuropsychological tests of real-word and pseudo-word reading were administered. TRIP task analyses revealed no between-group differences in pattern learning, but a positive correlation between individual learning scores and reading ability indicated that poor readers learned less well than did good readers. Thus, earlier reports of reduced implicit sequence learning in dyslexics cannot be entirely accounted for by motor sequencing deficits.No significant correlations or group differences in learning were found for SCCT. These findings offer
additional evidence for a link between poor reading and impaired implicit sequence learning. Show less