Title :
Automatic support for usability evaluation
Author :
Lecerof, Andreas ; Paternò, Fabio
Author_Institution :
Ist. CNUCE, CNR, Pisa, Italy
fDate :
10/1/1998 12:00:00 AM
Abstract :
The main goal of the work is to propose a method to evaluate user interfaces using task models and logs generated from a user test of an application. The method can be incorporated into an automatic tool which gives the designer information useful to evaluate and improve the user interface. These results include an analysis of the tasks which have been accomplished, those which failed and those never tried, user errors and their type, time related information, task patterns among the accomplished tasks, and the available tasks from the current state of the user session. This information is also useful to an evaluator checking whether the specified usability goals have been accomplished
Keywords :
automatic programming; human factors; interactive systems; program testing; software performance evaluation; task analysis; user interfaces; automatic support; automatic tool; task models; task patterns; time related information; usability evaluation; usability goals; user errors; user interface; user interface evaluation; user session; user test; Application software; Design engineering; Failure analysis; Human computer interaction; Information analysis; Performance evaluation; Process design; Testing; Usability; User interfaces;
Journal_Title :
Software Engineering, IEEE Transactions on