ITR: Adaptive Interfaces for Collecting Survey Data from Users

The New School, New York NY

Investigators

Abstract

The objective of this research is to determine how best to design computer systems for collecting data from (rather than providing data to) users. Government agencies might use such systems to gather the factual data used to calculate the unemployment rate or the Consumer Price Index. Three sets of laboratory experiments focus on actual and simulated desktop (i.e., keyboard and mouse entry) and speech survey interviewing systems. The first set of studies examines response accuracy and user satisfaction with systems that monitor users' speed of responding and speech patterns in order to diagnose when users misinterpret concepts in the survey questions and could use additional clarification. The second set of studies examines user response accuracy and satisfaction with interfaces that do (or do not) tailor this clarification through dialogue. The third set of studies contrasts interfaces that require users to educate themselves about how the questions should be interpreted with interfaces that engage users in dialogue to figure out the correct answer. The project uses the methods of experimental psychology to provide guidelines for future development of interfaces that collect information from users. This research could significantly improve the accuracy of data collected online by government agencies and others.