Mixed‐methods approach to measuring user experience in online news interactions
Bibliographic record
Abstract
When it comes to evaluating online information experiences, what metrics matter? We conducted a study in which 30 people browsed and selected content within an online news website. Data collected included psychometric scales (User Engagement, Cognitive Absorption, System Usability Scales), self‐reported interest in news content, and performance metrics (i.e., reading time, browsing time, total time, number of pages visited, and use of recommended links); a subset of the participants had their physiological responses recorded during the interaction (i.e., heart rate, electrodermal activity, electrocmytogram). Findings demonstrated the concurrent validity of the psychometric scales and interest ratings and revealed that increased time on tasks, number of pages visited, and use of recommended links were not necessarily indicative of greater self‐reported engagement, cognitive absorption, or perceived usability. Positive ratings of news content were associated with lower physiological activity. The implications of this research are twofold. First, we propose that user experience is a useful framework for studying online information interactions and will result in a broader conceptualization of information interaction and its evaluation. Second, we advocate a mixed‐methods approach to measurement that employs a suite of metrics capable of capturing the pragmatic (e.g., usability) and hedonic (e.g., fun, engagement) aspects of information interactions. We underscore the importance of using multiple measures in information research, because our results emphasize that performance and physiological data must be interpreted in the context of users' subjective experiences.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.057 | 0.076 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.001 | 0.002 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.004 | 0.003 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.002 | 0.001 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.003 | 0.001 |
| Open science | 0.002 | 0.002 |
| Research integrity | 0.002 | 0.001 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.003 | 0.001 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".