A structured methodology for comparative evaluation of user interface designs using usability criteria and measures

Previous research in software ergonomics has indicated the importance of evaluating the usability of computer user interfaces. This paper presents a quantitative basis for selecting from among multiple alternative interfaces relative to multiple criteria of usability concern. The proposed model consists of two main phases: the prescreening phase and the evaluation phase. The prescreening phase involves expert judgment-based assessment with qualitative criteria. The first phase uses absolute measurement analytic hierarchy process (AHP) to filter possible alternative interfaces to a reasonable subset. The evaluation phase involves user-based assessment such as user testing, with quantitative criteria. The objective of the second phase is to evaluate a subset of alternatives using objective measures and to select the best alternative. A set of criteria and measures for evaluating the usability of computer software designs is presented. The proposed methodology is demonstrated in the interface design of a database system used to analyze trip cases information of nuclear power plant.Relevance to industry

There is currently a focus on the usability of interactive computer software. Software developers, interface designers or human factors engineers often confront the task of comparative evaluation among systems, versions or interface designs. The proposed methodology provides practitioners with a structured approach to select the best interface based on usability criteria and measures.     

基于PCT的用户界面评估方法*

提出基于感知控制的评估方法,将心理学、传统评估方法和感知控制理论相结合,并提出了新的评估准则。该方法首先对界面的状态性和共享操作性进行评估,然后才是有效、高效性评估,旨在使评估后的用户界面满足普适环境下可用性需求。     

MOG user interface builder: a mechanism for integrating application and user interface

Tools which provide graphical editing techniques for the design of user interface presentations are increasingly commonplace. Such tools vary widely in the mechanisms used to define user interfaces and while some are general purpose, others are targeted at particular application domains. Designers faced with varying requirements must choose one tool and live with its shortcomings, purchase a number of different tools, or implement their own. The paper describes an approach to facilitating the latter by providing a library of augmented user interface components called MOG objects which embody both end-user and editing semantics. User interface design tools based on this approach need only provide mechanisms for composing MOG objects into user interfaces and the addition of any other, higher-level functionality. MOG-based user interfaces retain an in-built editing capability and are inherently tailorable.     

The right user interface

The Internet revolution was largely due to a killer interface based on HTML. Now intranets are poised to trigger the next paradigm in Web interfaces. Industrial applications in particular require a shift in orientation from pushing data to users to presenting them with sophisticated process-based interfaces. The specific theme of this paper is process-oriented user interfaces as opposed to data-oriented interfaces     

Separating user interface code

The first program I wrote on a salary was scientific calculation software in Fortran. As I was writing, I noticed that the code running the primitive menu system differed in style from the code carrying out the calculations. So I separated the routines for these tasks, which paid off when I was asked to create higher-level tasks that did several of the individual menu steps. I could just write a routine that called the calculation routines directly without involving the menus. Thus, I learned for myself a design principle that's served me well in software development: Keep your user interface code separate from everything else. It's a simple rule, embodied into more than one application framework, but it's often not followed, which causes quite a bit of trouble.     

Preventing user interface disasters

Abstract

This article defines a quantitative goal that is cheap to measure for the usability of a business application system for casual users. The article also describes a cost-effective method for attaining the goal. The goal is to eliminate all user interface disasters (UIDs) in a given system. UIDs are usability problems that seriously annoy users, or prevent them from accomplishing their work without help from a human being. The method consists of series of simple user tests without audio or video recording, and with little analysis after each user test. The article concludes by describing Baltica's results of applying the method to a medium-size business application for casual users.     

Seeking the user interface

User interface design and coding can be complex and messy. We describe a system that uses code search to simplify and automate the exploration of such code. We start with a simple sketch of the desired interface along with a set of keywords describing the application context. If necessary, we convert the sketch into a scalable vector graphics diagram. We then use existing code search engines to find results based on the keywords. We look for potential Java-based graphical user interface solutions within those results and apply a series of code transformations to the solutions to generate derivative solutions, aiming to get solutions that constitute only the user interface and that will compile and run. We run the resultant solutions and compare the generated interfaces to the user’s sketches. Finally, we let programmers interact with the matched solutions and return the running code for the solutions they choose. The system is useful for exploring alternative interfaces to the initial and for looking at graphical user interfaces in a code repository.     

The ECLIPSE user interface

This paper describes the user interface facilities of the ECLIPSE integrated project support environment. This interface is based on a consistent metaphor called the ‘control panel’ metaphor and includes standard help and message-handling systems. The paper describes these as well as some of the interface standards which have been developed. The interface has been implemented on top of the ‘applications interface’, which provides a portable, hardware-independent interface for software tools.     

Augmented reality agents for user interface adaptation

Most augmented reality (AR) applications are primarily concerned with letting a user browse a 3D virtual world registered with the real world. More advanced AR interfaces let the user interact with the mixed environment, but the virtual part is typically rather finite and deterministic. In contrast, autonomous behavior is often desirable in ubiquitous computing (Ubicomp), which requires the computers embedded into the environment to adapt to context and situation without explicit user intervention. We present an AR framework that is enhanced by typical Ubicomp features by dynamically and proactively exploiting previously unknown applications and hardware devices, and adapting the appearance of the user interface to persistently stored and accumulated user preferences. Our framework explores proactive computing, multi‐user interface adaptation, and user interface migration. We employ mobile and autonomous agents embodied by real and virtual objects as an interface and interaction metaphor, where agent bodies are able to opportunistically migrate between multiple AR applications and computing platforms to best match the needs of the current application context. We present two pilot applications to illustrate design concepts. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Research directions for user interface software tools

Abstract

Many writers of technical documentation must consider two different presentation media, namely traditional printed books and electronic forms. This appears to be a long-term situation, not a transitional phase: for some reading tasks, hard copy will be preferred, but for others, electronic copy will be preferred. In some settings, it is thus necessary to prepare material that is of high quality in both media, often with the constraint that a single source file be used. The problem is to specify the structure of a text so that whether it is printed or deployed electronically, neither version contains textual problems caused by its dual role. Several examples are presented to show how a writer's structuring intentions can be effective in hard copy but not in electronic copy. The difficulty of preserving structuring intentions in both media stems from declarative markup languages that are rhetorically impoverished. While standard markup languages can be used to specify what text elements comprise a text, they cannot be used to specify the intended roles of the text elements. To preserve structuring intentions, it is proposed that a rhetorical markup language is needed. Two potential advantages of such a language are improved media-transferabitity and improved visibility of text structure.     

A graphical user interface server for unix

The UNIX operating system has attained widespread popularity because of its power, flexibility and elegance. However, the common user interfaces (shells) have been criticized as being cryptic and difficult to use, especially for novices. In this paper, we present a user interface server that can be used to provide a graphical shell for UNIX. This shell helps to overcome a number of difficulties faced by both novices and experts. Although it is largely intended to assist novices, it is also designed not to become a hindrance for expert users and does not sacrifice the basic power and flexibility of UNIX. The server is designed to augment rather than replace text-based interfaces and can be used from a variety of different interactive programs in addition to shells.     

Formal models for user interface design artefacts

There are many different ways of building software applications and of tackling the problems of understanding the system to be built, designing that system and finally implementing the design. One approach is to use formal methods, which we can generalise as meaning we follow a process which uses some formal language to specify the behaviour of the intended system, techniques such as theorem proving or model-checking to ensure the specification is valid (i.e., meets the requirements and has been shown, perhaps by proof or other means of inspection, to have the properties the client requires of it) and a refinement process to transform the specification into an implementation. Conversely, the approach we take may be less structured and rely on informal techniques. The design stage may involve jotting down ideas on paper, brainstorming with users etc. We may use prototyping to transform these ideas into working software and get users to test the implementation to find problems. Formal methods have been shown to be beneficial in describing the functionality of systems, what we may call application logic, and underlying system behaviour. Informal techniques, however, have also been shown to be useful in the design of the user interface to systems. Given that both styles of development are beneficial to different parts of the system we would like to be able to use both approaches in one integrated software development process. Their differences, however, make this a challenging objective. In this paper we describe models and techniques which allow us to incorporate informal design artefacts into a formal software development process.     

Development of user interface for tele-operated cranes

This research focuses on one of the major challenges in a tele-operated crane system, namely the user interface (UI). This UI should provide rich information retrieved from the field and display it properly in order to enhance the operation and decision-making processes involved in crane activities. In this research, we have designed two UIs specifically for a tele-operated crane system. The first UI is a four view system (quad-view) with a top view, left-side view, right-side view, and global view. The second UI has four views but uses additional guidance from Augmented Reality (AR) technologies. To test the UIs, we used a robot arm (KUKA KR16) to simulate a tele-operated crane in a testing environment. We also compared the UIs we designed against a conventional operation interface (i.e. operator’s view with oral guidance from the ground). We conducted a user test with two groups of participants: 5 crane operators and 30 students. Students constitute a novice group, and their results are interpreted from a statistical perspective. Using the student group, the interface’s learning curve can be evaluated. Operators constitute an expert group, which provides evidences for evaluating if the developed UIs are realistic and fit the needs of the field. We found that use of the UIs we designed resulted in a shorter erection time (336 and 343 s) than if the participants used the conventional operation interface (380 s). A self-evaluated index showing the difficulty of the tasks, the NASA task loading index (TLX), was calculated for each of the UIs. The UIs resulted in a higher TLX (52.0 and 53.2) than the conventional operation interface (32.2). In summary, the two UIs developed in this research are able to assist operators in operating remote cranes more efficiently and with less mental load than by using the conventional operation interface.     

Design patterns for user interface for mobile applications

The topic of this paper is a collection of user interface (UI) design patterns for mobile applications. In the paper we present the structure of the patterns collection – the patterns are suggested solutions to problems that are grouped into a set of problem areas that are further grouped into three main problem areas – a structure which is valuable both as an index to identifying patterns to use, and it gives a fairly comprehensive overview of issues when designing user interfaces for mobile applications. To show the breadth of the patterns collection we present six individual problems with connected design patterns in some detail – each coming from different problem areas. They represent important and relevant problems, and are on different levels of abstraction, thus showing how patterns may be used to present problems and solutions on different levels of detail. To show the relevance and usefulness of the patterns collection for usability professionals with a mixed background, we present some relevant findings from a validation of the patterns collection. In addition to verifying the relevance and usefulness of the patterns collection, it also shows both expected and surprising correlations between background and perceived relevance and usefulness. One important finding from the validation is an indication that the patterns collection is best suited for experienced UI developers wanting to start developing mobile UIs. Using a patterns collection for documenting design knowledge and experience has been a mixed experience, so we discuss pros and cons of this. Finally, we present related work and future research.     

基于用户界面模型的界面模板

界面模板是一种崭新的界面设计模式，提出了基于界面模型的界面模板概念，在支持界面自动生成的界面开发方法中实现从抽象界面到具体界面的转化。讨论了界面模板的构成与表达、界面模板的分类以及界面模板库体系结构，说明了界面模板的用法。     

Querying through a user interface

In contrast to a traditional setting where users express queries against the database schema, we assert that the semantics of data can often be understood by viewing the data in the context of the user interface (UI) of the software tool used to enter the data. That is, we believe that users will understand the data in a database by seeing the labels, drop-down menus, tool tips, or other help text that are built into the user interface. Our goal is to allow domain experts with little technical skill to understand and query data. In this paper, we present our GUi As View (Guava) framework and describe how we use forms-based UIs to generate a conceptual model that represents the information in the user interface. We then describe how we generate a query interface from the conceptual model. We characterize the resulting query language using a subset of the relational algebra. Since most application developers want to craft a physical database to meet desired performance needs, we present here a transformation channel that can be configured by instantiating one or more of our transformation operators. The channel, once configured, automatically transforms queries from our query interface into queries that address the underlying physical database and delivers query results that conform to our query interface. In this paper, we define and formalize our database transformation operators. The contributions of this paper are that first, we demonstrate the feasibility of creating a query interface based directly on the user interface and second, we introduce a general purpose database transformation channel that will likely shorten the application development process and increase the quality of the software by automatically generating software artifacts that are often made manually and are prone to errors.     

Querying through a user interface

In contrast to a traditional setting where users express queries against the database schema, we assert that the semantics of data can often be understood by viewing the data in the context of the user interface (UI) of the software tool used to enter the data. That is, we believe that users will understand the data in a database by seeing the labels, drop-down menus, tool tips, or other help text that are built into the user interface. Our goal is to allow domain experts with little technical skill to understand and query data. In this paper, we present our GUi As View (Guava) framework and describe how we use forms-based UIs to generate a conceptual model that represents the information in the user interface. We then describe how we generate a query interface from the conceptual model. We characterize the resulting query language using a subset of the relational algebra. Since most application developers want to craft a physical database to meet desired performance needs, we present here a transformation channel that can be configured by instantiating one or more of our transformation operators. The channel, once configured, automatically transforms queries from our query interface into queries that address the underlying physical database and delivers query results that conform to our query interface. In this paper, we define and formalize our database transformation operators. The contributions of this paper are that first, we demonstrate the feasibility of creating a query interface based directly on the user interface and second, we introduce a general purpose database transformation channel that will likely shorten the application development process and increase the quality of the software by automatically generating software artifacts that are often made manually and are prone to errors.