Measuring prior experience in learned product interactions

In a earlier experiment we addressed the extent to which prior experience of a product affect its use as measured by the time taken to complete a set of tasks and by an protocol analysis of the number and type of errors made during interactions. An uncontrolled variable from the previous work was that of the degree of experience of relevant interface elements. Metrics of experience were devised to measure this but depended on self report of amount of experience weighted by product, interface and brand similarity. Hence, we have addressed prior experience directly with a training transfer experiment. A preliminary analysis of the data suggests that learning during the training phase occurred quickly overa few trials. Transfertoa second product with identical functionality and interface sequence but different layout and appearance of controls gave rise to a significant (4 minute) increase in time to complete set tasks. A third product with the same functionality but different controls, layout and appearance roughly doubled the times and errors.