Less Clicking, More Watching: Results of the Iterative Design and Evaluation of Entertaining Web Experiences

Research on a web application intended to provide an entertaining and engaging cultural experience for users is described. Initial discovery phase research, using user-centered design, suggested that such an application should be designed with a “less clicking, more watching” approach. Two web tour prototypes were created and tested with 24 subjects in singles and pairs conditions to analyze user’s ratings of engagement, entertainment, satisfaction with level of interactivity, subject matter appeal and their observed mouse activity. Results demonstrate that subjects who interacted less with the tours had higher subjective ratings on these variables. There were no significant differences between singles and pairs groups on subjective or observed measures. In the domain of cultural entertainment on the web, users may ask for much more control functionality than they really use in practice.