Cognitive Factors Involved in the Ability to Manipulate a Digital Camera

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to understand who user' property affects the ability to manipulate a digital camera. The N-back task, the action control scale, usability test, structural test, functional test, protocol analysis and some questioner are used to understand user' distinction. The relationships among each property and performance were cleared by correlation analysis. As a result, functional models about the camera are most important to use well.

Effects of Asymmetry between Design Models and User Models on Subjective Comprehension of User Interface

“…This finding is consistent with the results of previous studies on mental models in usability and cognitive engineering fields. Previous studies [19,20,22] reported that operation performance improved when users construct appropriate mental models and that the usability of products for which mental models are easy to construct is good. In other words, to improve the usability of a product and increase the user's operating performance, it is important that the user is able to construct a mental model that fits the system.…”

“…The structural model relates to the comprehension of a structure and a working principle to assume "how a device works?". Mental model tests from the perspective of functional and structural models have been used in previous studies and found to be valid [21][22][23]. Therefore, the author adopted these tests to measure the level of mental model construction.…”

“…Therefore, the author adopted these tests to measure the level of mental model construction. This study adopted the following two tests conducted by Doi et al [23] and Ishihara et al [22] to predict the level of both functional and structural models: (1) a test to measure the comprehension of the task procedure (functional model), and (2) a test to measure the comprehension of the hierarchical structure of the screen (structural model).…”

“…Although the target systems of Kieras and Bovair [19] and Kellogg [20] are different, both studies suggested that having mental models that fit the actual system (symmetric mental models) leads to improved operational performance. There have been studies of mental models for user interfaces of various devices (e.g., digital camera [2,21,22], multi-functional controller [3], calculator [11], online catalog [12], fictional electrical device [19,23], software [20]). Besides, since cognitive processes during user interface operations can be explained typically to some extent, such as the seven stages of action [24], the importance of mental models can be generalized to some extent to user interface operations in general.…”