System Usability Scale

John Brooke came out with this "quick and dirty" usability test for real life application in his work place and it has been hugely successful since. I will use the usability scale on my Enthuasastep prototype for the smart phone.

Scoring SUS

• For odd items: subtract one from the user response.
• For even-numbered items: subtract the user responses from 5
• This scales all values from 0 to 4 (with four being the most positive response).
• Add up the converted responses for each user and multiply that total by 2.5. This converts the range of possible values from 0 to 100 instead of from 0 to 40.

Frequencies of Survey with SPSS

Have you ever played a game on a social network before?
Frequency Percent Valid Percent Cumulative Percent
Valid No 32 29.4 29.4 29.4
Response 1 .9 .9 30.3
Yes 76 69.7 69.7 100.0
Total 109 100.0 100.0

Would you describe yourself as a person who either sits, reads, drives, watches television or use's a computer for much of the week with little or no vigorous physical exercise?
Frequency Percent Valid Percent Cumulative Percent
Valid No 47 43.1 43.1 43.1
Response 1 .9 .9 44.0
Yes 61 56.0 56.0 100.0
Total 109 100.0 100.0

Do you use your phone to help improve your lifestyle?
Frequency Percent Valid Percent Cumulative Percent
Valid No 52 47.7 47.7 47.7
Response 1 .9 .9 48.6
Yes 56 51.4 51.4 100.0
Total 109 100.0 100.0

Would you stop playing a social game because of having to pay money?
Frequency Percent Valid Percent Cumulative Percent
Valid No 8 7.3 7.3 7.3
Response 1 .9 .9 8.3
Yes 100 91.7 91.7 100.0
Total 109 100.0 100.0

Would you like to use your phone to be more physical active?
Frequency Percent Valid Percent Cumulative Percent
Valid No 50 45.9 45.9 45.9
Response 1 .9 .9 46.8
Yes 58 53.2 53.2 100.0
Total 109 100.0 100.0

If a online social game helped you to be physically active, would you play it?
Frequency Percent Valid Percent Cumulative Percent
Valid No 25 22.9 22.9 22.9
Response 1 .9 .9 23.9
Yes 83 76.1 76.1 100.0
Total 109 100.0 100.0

There are 2 games. The first you use money to buy virtual goods. The second you "buy"  virtual goods through your daily physical activity as the currency. Which game would you play?
Frequency Percent Valid Percent Cumulative Percent
Valid Response 1 .9 .9 .9
The first game 22 20.2 20.2 21.1
The second game 86 78.9 78.9 100.0
Total 109 100.0 100.0

Do you use a smart phone/iphone? 
Frequency Percent Valid Percent Cumulative Percent
Valid No 79 72.5 72.5 72.5
Response 1 .9 .9 73.4
Yes 29 26.6 26.6 100.0
Total 109 100.0 100.0

Using SPSS to Analyze Survey Data

SPSS (originally, Statistical Package for the Social Sciences) was released in its first version in 1968 after being developed by Norman H Nie and C. Hadlai Hull. It is used by market researchers, health researchers, survey companies, government, education researchers, marketing organizations and others. I will use SPSS to analyze the data I gathered with my survey to prove my concept does have a valid market place.

Easter Holidays

Done so far.....

• Sample Survey
• Self-efficacy Survey on volunteers
• Created YourCity game application
• Tested YourCity with the volunteers
• Generated results from volunteers step count
• Literature review 
• Methods & Methodology

To do for rest of Easter.....

• Analysis survey results
• Start the study part of thesis
• Get volunteers to take after self-efficacy test
• Screenshots of all the volunteers cities
• Design Enthuasastep
• Implement Enthuasastep with powerpoint and pdf
• Test enthuasastep with usability test

Testing the self-efficacy of my volunteers

I needed to know which type of self efficacy my volunteers had (high/low) towards physical activity. I used  Health-Specific Self-Efficacy Scales created by Ralf Schwarzer & Britta Renner to get a self-efficacy rating of my volunteers. It worked out that 4 had high self-efficacy towards physical activity and 4 had low self-efficacy towards physical activity. The questionnaire can be found at

https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/DetermineSelfEfficacy

YourCity Online on YOYO Games

YourCity
Added: 17 April 2011
By: sdliverpool

I planned on having the game using the instant play feature on the YOYO games website but it is disabled at the moment for some reason. Instead the game has to be down loaded from the site. Game maker have released a new version Game maker 8.1 two days ago that rectified this issue but I used Game Maker 8 and due to time constraints not modifying my game to Game Maker 8.1. This was an issue for administrating the game but I overcame this issue by a 5 digit code system. The volunteer tells me their step count and I give them a 5 digit code for their earned energy unit. Different codes for each day. Any member of the public or any of the volunteers can access the game online and download it to their PC. The down load is a zip file that consists of an executable of the game and the files generated for each of my volunteers.

Testing my concept

I sent out a survey a few weeks ago to try get my target audience. I needed people that were sedentary and played social games. I got 11 suitable volunteers. I then gave 8 willing volunteers a questionnaire (Ralf Schwarzt & Britta Peaner derived the questionnaire) to find out their self-efficacy levels towards fitness. I divided the group into 2 groups a) high level of self efficacy b) low level of self efficacy. Each volunteer was given a pedometer. 

I was provided pedometers by Breda a supervisor in CIT's GYM. She had previously used them in a pedometer challenge for the college. I text each participant for 4 nights in week 1 documenting their step count for each day. In week 2 I will request their step count and then reward the user by crediting them energy in the YourCity beta game. All participants will be given a questionnaire after the test to see their opinion on the system.