Effects of Level of Abstraction and Presentation Media on Usability of User-System Interface Guidelines

Abstract

User-system interface (USI) guidelines are emerging as a tool for user interface design. The roles of levels of abstraction (concrete and abstract) and of guideline presentation medium (hard copy or on-line) on detection of USI guidelines violations in user-system interface evaluation were investigated. Overall, less than 50% of the guideline violations were detected by software engineers. Abstract guideline violations were more difficult to detect than concrete guideline violations, and on-line presentation resulted in relatively higher guideline usage during evaluation than hard copy presentation. It was concluded that improvements in USI guideline form and media are required to make guidelines a more useful USI design tool.

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