Print versionSummary of findings
Table 5.7 gives an overview of the feedback provided by participants in regards to their personal experience with the six filtered environments and the one non-filtered environment throughout the tasks:
Table 5.7 - User experience overview
| No Filter | Filter 1 | Filter 2 | Filter 3 | Filter 4 | Filter 5 | Filter 6 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| User 1 | + | + | - | - | = | - | - |
| User 2 | + | + | - | + | + | + | - |
| User 3 | + | = | + | - | = | + | - |
| User 4 | + | + | + | = | = | + | - |
| User 5 | + | + | + | + | + | + | - |
| User 6 | + | + | = | + | = | = | - |
| No Filter | Filter 3 | Filter 5 | |
|---|---|---|---|
| User 1 | + | + | + |
| User 2 | + | - | + |
| User 3 | + | + | + |
| User 4 | + | + | + |
| User 5 | + | + | + |
| User 6 | + | + | + |
| + | positive experience; no difference in speed to non-filtered environment |
| = | medium experience; potentially slower connection but acceptable |
| - | negative experience; slow connection or major disruption of task |
In summary the results for the user experience testing with regard to connection speed were:
- The participants noticed only little difference in performance between the individual filters,
- Only one out of the six users noted any performance difference,
- In the few cases where participants expressed they felt a slow-down of performance, they mostly felt the difference was minor and the speed still acceptable.
In addition, the results for user experience testing for filter blocking were:
- Users felt insecure and in some cases frustrated if filters blocked content without appropriate feedback. Some of the filters blocked images without informing the users that the content was being blocked by filters, which caused participants to either blame the Internet Service Provider or assume they had made a mistake,
- The standard settings of some of the filters caused some web sites to be blocked unnecessarily or interrupted tasks at critical points,
- In some scenarios filters crashed entirely or caused error messages to appear in the browser window that could not be recovered.
The filter blocking results highlight the importance of accuracy of filtering and clear messages to users when blocking occurs. Users were particularly frustrated by error type message or inability to access a site that should clearly be accessible.
Back to Detailed testing method | Table of contents