NASA Task Load Index (TLX)

Personality & Rating Scales Duration: ~2 minutes
NASA Task Load Index (TLX) screenshot

System Requirements

🖥️
Screen Size:
Minimum: 800×600
Recommended: 1024×768
🖱️
Mouse required (touchpad OK)

Description

A multidimensional assessment tool for measuring subjective workload across six dimensions

About This Test

The NASA Task Load Index (TLX) is a widely-used multidimensional assessment tool that provides an overall workload score based on a weighted average of ratings on six subscales: Mental Demand, Physical Demand, Temporal Demand, Performance, Effort, and Frustration. The standard TLX includes optional pairwise comparisons to weight the dimensions, though weights are often omitted in practice. This implementation presents each dimension on a visual analog scale and records both ratings and response times. The task name can be customized to reference the activity being rated.

Test Details

Test ID:
TLX
Main File:
TLX.pbl
Parameters:
3 configurable parameters
Languages:
English

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Scientific Background

Original Task References:

These references describe the original task that this PEBL implementation is based on.

  • Hart, S. G., & Staveland, L. E. (1988). Development of NASA-TLX (Task Load Index): Results of empirical and theoretical research. In P. A. Hancock & N. Meshkati (Eds.), Human Mental Workload (pp. 139-183). Amsterdam: North-Holland.
  • Hart, S. G. (2006). NASA-Task Load Index (NASA-TLX); 20 years later. Proceedings of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society Annual Meeting, 50(9), 904-908.

Data Output

Outputs subject-specific CSV file with ratings and optional weights for all six dimensions, plus pooled data file aggregating all participants. Data includes dimension ratings (1-21 scale), optional weights (0-5, sum to 15), and response times.