Sebew — An Evaluation Method for User Interfaces of Command and Control Systems

Abstract

A computer-based evaluation method (SEBEW) for design of user interfaces has been developed. For this purpose existing standards, guidelines, and evaluation instruments have been analyzed. Evaluation and design criteria were extracted, reformulated or newly formulated for command and control systems. A data base, structured and created by a complex data model and realized in Microsoft Access, contains the complete volume of about 1500 design and evaluation criteria. For the evaluation of information systems SEBEW allows the display of selected items, which have to be rated. Attached features like references, instructions, examples, and drawings can be offered, if required, for additional information. This paper describes the functional design of the evaluation system as well as the evaluation procedure with the rating and scoring methods. Results and experiences using the system in the usability evaluation process and results of validation studies for two military systems are discussed. These studies concentrated on the interrater consistency of the method. Additionally, an investigation is in progress to determine empirical validity by comparing two alternative command and control systems with known different software-ergonomic quality.