The Importance of Self-Efficacy to Usability: Grounded Theory Analysis of a Child's Toy Assembly Task

Abstract

Traditional usability measures such as effectiveness, efficiency, and satisfaction may not fully describe usability across domains and user groups. Qualitative Grounded Theory analysis was employed to study children assembling toys from pictorial instructions. The resulting model showed that usability problems can have a striking impact beyond just performance, affecting the user's self-efficacy, particularly among girls who tend to use internal attributions and equate difficulty with low ability. Without sufficient self-efficacy, the child will likely choose not to engage with assembly tasks and may regard him or herself as inadequately skilled in that area. Usability professionals should consider adding self-efficacy measures to provide more complete assessments.

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