Web based evaluation of proactive user interfaces

Usability evaluation of new interface concepts often requires a user study to yield valid results. User studies are however a cost intensive method compared to guideline based usability evaluation. In the AUGUR project we conducted a user study to validate a new interface concept, proactive user interfaces. The method for evaluation we used consists of four steps and relies on leveraging existing tools for realizing each step. These tools can highly automate the data gathering step in the usability study and thereby lower the cost for conducting such a study. In particular they allow for remote participation via a web browser. The obtained data can be analyzed to gain insight into the relation of factors to the three subnotions of usability: efficiency, effectiveness and satisfaction as defined in ISO 9241. We applied the developed method to evaluate the proactive user interfaces we develop in the AUGUR project. In the AUGUR project we aim at augmenting existing user interfaces with proactive and multimodal features to enhance the overall usability of the application. In this paper, we also present the results of the study that shows that proactive augmentations are beneficial for the usability of a user interface and serves as a case study for the application of the evaluation method.