Experimental evaluation of five methods for collecting emotions in field settings with mobile applications

This paper presents experiences on using five different self-report methods, two adopted from literature and three self-created, for collecting information about emotional responses to mobile applications. These methods were used in nine separate field experiments done in naturalistic settings. Based on our experiments, we can argue that all of these methods can be successfully used for collecting emotional responses to evaluate mobile applications in mobile settings. However, differences can be identified in the suitability of the methods for different research setups. Even though the self-report instruments provide a feasible alternative for evaluating emotions evoked by mobile applications, several challenges were identified, for example, in capturing the dynamic nature of mobile interaction usage situations and contexts. To summarise our results, we propose a framework for selecting and comparing these methods for different usage purposes.