Argus: Interactive a priori Power Analysis
Abstract
A key challenge HCI researchers face when designing a controlled experiment is choosing the appropriate number of participants, or sample size. A priori power analysis examines the relationships among multiple parameters, including the complexity associated with human participants, e.g., order and fatigue effects, to calculate the statistical power of a given experiment design. We created Argus, a tool that supports interactive exploration of statistical power: Researchers specify experiment design scenarios with varying confounds and effect sizes. Argus then simulates data and visualizes statistical power across these scenarios, which lets researchers interactively weigh various trade-offs and make informed decisions about sample size. We describe the design and implementation of Argus, a usage scenario designing a visualization experiment, and a think-aloud study.
Key Words: Visual analytics, visualization, HCI, experiment design, power analysis, simulation
Xiaoyi Wang, Alexander Eiselmayer, Wendy E. Mackay, Kasper Hornbaek and Chat Wacharamanotham, "Argus: Interactive a priori Power Analysis," in IEEE Transactions on Visualization and Computer Graphics, vol. 27, no. 2, pp. 432-442, Feb. 2021.