Data Gathering for Ergonomic and Design Evaluations: Issues and Pitfalls

Abstract: There are moments within the process of creating an artifact, for instance at the initial requirements gathering or in the assessment phase, that input data is collected from users. There may be an impact directly on the results of the analysis of this data if, for some reason, this data input is not accurate. Another important matter when designing a new artifact is to find out the appropriate number of product reviewers that would better reflect the views of the target population to which the product is intended. In order to contribute to the strategy of increasing the accuracy of the evaluations and minimizing the chance of errors of judgment, this article identifies some case studies where the input from the users is not accurate because of the presence of a phenomenon known as Conjunction Fallacy and also where the number of product reviewers is not calculated properly. This article also presents a possible strategy to minimize errors of judgment caused by the fallacy and also presents a case study where the number of evaluators is calculated correctly by using statistical methods.

Keywords: Usability, Evaluation, Sample Space, Confidence Interval, conjunction fallacy, ergonomic assessment

DOI: 10.54941/ahfe1001257

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