RITA : a useR Interface evaluaTion frAmework

Abstract

Interactive systems are constantly evolving. This evolution leads to new challenges. One of these challenges pertains to the quality of dialogue between interactive systems and humans. This dialogue essentially takes place through user interfaces. User interface evaluation is essential to improve communication between a system and its users. The research on interface evaluation is plentiful. Nevertheless, user interface evaluators still encounter difficulties. Therefore, in this article we suggest expanding the functionalities of existing evaluation tools by proposing a user interface evaluation framework. This framework is composed by software applications structured following a modular architecture. It is based on three different evaluation techniques and has a modular architecture that can be configured to evaluate different user interfaces. After being presented, this framework is tested on a network supervision system for a project in the transportation domain. The main advantages of the presented Framework are the following: (1) the guidelines are not hard coded into the evaluation engine; (2) it is based on three different evaluation techniques to avail further data for the evaluation; (3) it is structured following a modular architecture to enable flexible and configurable use; (4) interaction data are automatically captured and analyzed; and (5) the framework is intended for the evaluation of different kind of user interfaces.