Emotional response as a measure of human performance

Emotional reactions are a key part of the user experience, and are particularly of interest to the design of systems that consider user emotions. This dissertation studies methods of measuring emotional responses through a novel two-dimensional tool, based on the model of valence and arousal. A study on reactions to storyboard and video prototypes motivated the need for continuous, quantitative, affective self-report. A pilot study with a slider revealed significant differences between the experiences of several video conferencing techniques. Next steps include prototyping two-dimensional affective self-report capture devices, and an experiment to compare relative ease of use and cognitive complexity of different methods of emotional measurement.