A model-based approach for software engineering of interaction techniques

While model-based approaches have been used for over 30 years in the field of behavioral description of interactive systems [27], the link between these approaches and user-centered design process remain insufficiently explained. This paper offers a contribution to this problem by presenting how a model-based approach can be exploited to facilitate the tasks of evaluation of usability that are often laborious and repetitive. The basic principle of this approach promotes the use of recording and analysis of log data in a model-based environment. The results described in this paper show that the log data at model level can be used not only to identify usability problems but also to identify changes to these models in order to correct the encountered problems. This approach is integrated in a process and is supported by a model-based CASE tool for modeling, simulating and evaluating interactive systems. The case study illustrates the principles of the approach and operation of the tool on an interaction technique. It shows how the analysis of log data allows the designer to easily tune the interaction technique (as the results of the analysis of log data are presented at the same abstraction level than models). It proposes an alternative to user tests that are very difficult to configure and to interpret especially when advanced interaction techniques are concerned.