An information theory-based approach for quantitative evaluation of user interface complexity

Author

Kang, Hyun G. ; Seong, Poong H.

Author_Institution

Dept. of Nucl. Eng., Korea Adv. Inst. of Sci. & Technol., Taejon, South Korea

Volume

45

Issue

6

fYear

1998

fDate

12/1/1998 12:00:00 AM

Firstpage

3165

Lastpage

3174

Abstract

Development of effective measures for the complexity of human-computer interface design based on a proper model is desirable in order to improve the human performance and to facilitate the system development. In this paper, the authors propose the task-to-action (TTA) model which can describe the task-performing procedure of human operators. Quantitative interface design complexity measures using an informational entropy concept are also proposed to determine the user interface complexity, i.e., operation complexity, transition complexity, and screen complexity. Two experiments are performed in this work to show the validity of the proposed model and the measures: one is to test the validity of the TTA model with the case of information-seeking problem and the other for the suggested entropy measures

Keywords

entropy; human factors; information theory; user interfaces; entropy measures; human-computer interface design; information theory-based approach; information-seeking problem; informational entropy concept; operation complexity; quantitative evaluation; screen complexity; system development; task-to-action model; transition complexity; user interface complexity; Anthropometry; Entropy; Guidelines; Humans; Information theory; Performance evaluation; Power generation; Predictive models; Testing; User interfaces;

fLanguage

English

Journal_Title

Nuclear Science, IEEE Transactions on

Publisher

ieee

ISSN

0018-9499

Type

jour

DOI

10.1109/23.736195

Filename

736195