ABSTRACT
Users have to handle a lot of information in order to fulfill their current task. For achieving an appropriate time and level of quality the users’ motivation plays a key role. In this paper we present a user study which aimed to evaluate if the self-rated expertise of the subjects in their computer system skills has an impact on their task completion effectiveness using visualizations. The results reveal that regardless of the self-rated assurance of the users, no significant difference in the effectiveness of task completions using visualizations could be registered. Furthermore the participants indicate in the questionnaire that using visualization their individual satisfaction level had no significant differences when compared to the users’ selfassurance levels. This indicates even users feeling not confident in interacting with computer systems they may feel confident in interacting with visualizations. Thus if visualizations are applied for tasks of information search and exploration, the user is encouraged to higher effectiveness.
