Figure 2 - uploaded by Jiří Hynek
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2: Minard's graphics of Napoleon's Russian campaign. Used from [Tufte, 2001]. Original source: E. J. Marey, La Méthode Graphique [Marey, 1885].
Source publication
Using metrics and quantitative design guidelines to analyze design aspects of user interfaces (UI) seems to be a promising way for the automatic evaluation of the visual quality of user interfaces. Since this approach is not able to replace user testing, it can provide additional information about possible design problems in early design phases and...
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Citations
The thesis examines, whether the usability evaluation of prototypes for user interfaces can be automated and how that could be realized. Automation in the context of this thesis means, that no human testers are involved in the evaluation. Designers in small and medium companies are the main target group. Therefore, the proposed implementation is based on the constraints to which these companies are subject, such as limited resources in terms of finances, personnel and expertise.
In order to collect existing approaches of automatic evaluation, that could serve as the basis for a concept, a literature review was conducted. It revealed, that a metric-based method is suitable for the goal of the thesis, but that none of the considered sets of usability metrics is applicable.
Accordingly, it was necessary to develop a new set of metrics. For this purpose, metrics were collected from different sources, criteria for the suitability of the metrics were established and the metrics were filtered accordingly. Furthermore, the up-to-dateness of the metrics was checked and necessary adjustments were made. In addition, new metrics were derived from existing ones, if an adaptation to the previously defined specifications was not possible.
Initially, the concept was created as a design and in the course of this, some details were optimized. Subsequently, the prototypical implementation followed, in which the basic structure of the plugin and the exemplary calculation of a metric were realized. Thus, the feasibility of the concept was proven.
The work shows, that the automatic evaluation of prototypes is possible with the use of metrics. The developed set of metrics could be associated with nine out of ten of the considered aspects of usability. At the same time it was shown, that there is a gap in the existing research regarding usability metrics, that are not determined on the basis of user tests.