portfolio ux

reality s canty

emailrealcanty@gmail.com

@DarkDUX

linkedinhttps://www.linkedin.com/in/realitycanty

phone708.548.4173

research

I’m a cognitive psychologist (PhD, UIC, 2014) and learning scientist who employs user-focused research to optimize the design of tech-based UX. Much of my work over the past 13 years has examined user-tech interactions to inform the design and improvement of analog and digital display-based UX and technologies that aim to build STEM capacity in children and young adults.

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domainexpertise

a key to design and improve effective UX with analog and digital displays is to (a) understand how user knowledge and display features independently and interactively influence user emotion and reasoning

and (b) maximize alignment between stakeholder and user models

“UX Research Promotes Algebraic Reasoning in Young Children”

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uxresearch triangulation study

usability

unmoderated usability

card-sorting

moderatedmethods

ethnography

observed how 44 users interacted with a display-based activity in 3 classrooms

examined how 442 users met task demands of six different displays

usability study revealed poor alignment between stakeholder & user models. card-sorting and usability studies expanded the UX to three display-based activities from one; greatly improving said alignment as well as the construct and instructional validity of the UX

ethnography, unmoderated usability, moderated usability and card-sorting methods were coordinated to examine and improve UX with visuospatial displays; I designed, managed and analyzed the moderated interviews

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usability & card-sorting

moderatedmethods

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1

44 8-9 year-olds were recruited from three classrooms and individually interviewed

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Each child was told to think aloud while completing each WMR display and to justify each answer

Cochran’s Q (4, 42) = 38.49, p < .001

Regardless of solution accuracy, not one child showed consistent evidence of covariance in his or her justifications across display User expectations were met from child and teacher perspectives but not from view of developers

mainresults

Moderated Usability 1

uxresearch triangulation study

4 or

direct instruction

design experience

misalignment between stakeholder & user models forced a critical design decision

although direct strategy instruction would show the child how to search it would not show why . I “sold” the idea to design & test a three-activity UX module to the research teams, a PI, and the developers.

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designdecision

Investigated the extent that UX with displays meets stakeholder and user expectations

objective

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42 8-9 year-olds were recruited from three classrooms and individually interviewed

2 Sorting accuracy, problem-solving accuracy, and verbal justification data were analyzed to address the study objectives

Three user groups were identified that differentially used principled knowledge to represent relational structure of rules in the displays Classification decisions in card-sort task predicted problem-solving accuracy in the main display activity (see graph)

mainresults

Moderated Card-Sort

uxresearch triangulation study 1 3

A B

C

4 Three knowledge organization models were formed from children’s classification patterns

usermodels

and verbal and finger-pointing

data. From each, a mental and a

task performance model was

proposed; solution accuracy

increased from model A to C

Examined cognitive validity of a newly designed card-sort activity and its capacity to account for solution accuracy in WMR displays

objective

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1

12 8-9 year-olds were recruited from three classrooms and individually interviewed

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3

Each child was told to to justify each answer and explanation after solving a problem; finger-pointing gesture and verbal data analyzed

Most users correctly diagnosed each WMR display in the activity Users with incorrect diagnoses employed a visual rather than a conceptual strategy

mainresults

Moderated Usability 2

uxresearch triangulation study

Examined cognitive and instructional validity of a newly made activity designed to promote diagnosis of function machine displays in children

objective

4

We transcribed and coded the verbal and gesture data, then generated verbal-gesture reference plots (shown below)

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uxresearch triangulation study Summary

Highlighted distinction between sound product design and sound UX WMR displays expressed sound product design but UX and developer mental models were misaligned

product vs. UX Users varied in the capacity to categorize WMR displays by arithmetic relation Variation explained by visual extraction of relation from spatial-numeric information Three classes of mental model were observed across users’ category decisions ranging from less to more principled

displaycategorization

Recommended expanding UX from one display-based activity to three Result was a more effective UX module for that met needs of all stakeholders UX module greatly improved instruction, learning and assessment Underscored need for rigorous UX research in STEM education & technology

effectiveUX

Less-Principled I sort three (or more) groups; those with addition symbol in rule-box , those with subtraction symbol in rule-box and those with empty rule-box

Moderately-Principled I first sort displays with symbol in rule-box by operation then sort displays without symbols in rule-box by operation but I make at least one error

More-Principled I sort displays into two

groups by arithmetic principle; relation either

reflects an additive increase or an additive decrease; salience is a

cue not a category

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display analysis, principal components analysis & two-choice preference testing

quantitativeleanUXmethods

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1

272 9-10 year-olds recruited from 21 classrooms in 5 school districts situated in the midwest part of the United States

2 Each child completed displays that required them to reason through number sentences with parentheses

Display is reliable and has good discriminatory power (see table) Display shows good internal structure with respect to the tested design assumptions (see diagram)

mainresults

Display and Principal Components Analysis

uxresearch difficulty & reliability

Summary Statistics: Display and Test Reliability and Consistency Test Statistic Possible Value Desired Value PINS Value (n=272)

Item Difficulty Index [0.00, 1.00] > 0.30 Average 0.82

Item Discrimination Index [-1.00, +1.100] > 0.30 Average 0.62

Point Biserial Coefficient, rpbs [-1.00, +1.00] > 0.20 .56

KR-21 test Reliability Index, rtest [0.00, 1.00] > 0.70 or > 0.85 .88 Ferguson’s δ [0.00, 1.00] > 0.90 .98

Examine psychometric properties of the display worksheet Test the assumption that items with similar instructional prompts should express same goal structure

objective

3

4

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1

19 parents of toddlers with previous iPad experience shown two versions of homepage: A vs B

2 Each parent was asked to choose the most appealing version of the startscreen and to justify the choice

More parents preferred buttons isolated on the startscreen (B) Parents thought isolated buttons would make it easier to select the desired action Convinced other principals that UX research is valuable and can reveal counterintuitive insights UX led to two awards for the app

mainresults

Preference Testing with Prototype

uxresearch design preference

Determine parental preference for location of “Progress” and “Bios” button in the startscreen of an app designed to promote family memories

objective

3

A B

vs

McNemar’s test (1, 19) = 8.76, p <.01

startscreen

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partners & clients

blog & socialmedia - Excellence in Undergraduate Mentoring (UIC, 2014) - Best App for Kids, Age 1 (Parent’s Magazine, 2014) - Editor’s Choice for Excellence in Design

(Children’s Technology Review, 2013) - Sigma Xi (The Scientific Research Society),

Honorable Mention

researchawards

leadership - Principal Scientist, NameGames, LLC - Project Lead – Usability Research Team mentored 18 undergrads saving project over $124,000 testimonial “Reality has developed a very effective process of working with undergraduates…in their skills at doing research. This process has led to a large number of presentations…”

Dr. Susan R. Goldman Distinguished Professor of Psychology and Co-Director

Learning Sciences Research Institute

@DarkDUX

on me!