Domain Restrictive User Interfaces Using Database Systems

The research undertaken uses an analytic based model tor the quantitative prediction of end-user behaviour for a highly stylised 'walk up and use' interlace. The model successfully predicts times for typical end-users. The theoretical basis is that tor the interfaces considered practiced novice and novice end-users become expert within a short period of time, typically a few tasks. Evaluation of the model required the development of a system called DRAGEN (Domain Restrictive Application (lliNcrator) based on an analytic model (GOMS/CCT) which generates and executes the interfaces. The GOMS model describes the knowledge that an end-user has of a task in terms of goals, operators, methods and selection rules. The work to date on GOMS has centred around the application of the GOMS model to existing interlaces. In this work the analytic model is used to design a new class of interfaces. The designer of the application generates the interlace in terms of the tasks that the end-user will carry out. The SQL queries used in the design follow the goals that the end-user has lor tasks within DRAGEN. The designer breaks down the goal into subgoals tor each screen that is developed, the last screen in the hierarchy usually forms the goal of a task. DRAGEN also generates a production rule set for each component in the stylised interlace structure, the production rules are simple and straight forward, this is reflected by the interface possessing 'walk up and use' facilities. The data required to generate the interlace, the generated interface, the graph of all possible transitions and the end-user times to carry out tasks are held in a database system. Evaluations have been earned out to see how well generated interfaces in use match the predictions of the theoretical model developed in the thesis. The results of the evaluations show that the analytic based model successfully predicts the time taken to carry out tasks and that the number of end-user errors follow the assumption of errorless performance within the empirical parameters that have been defined.

Name dc:type.qualificationname

PhD

Level dc:type.qualificationlevel

Doctoral

Grantor dc:publisher.institution

De Montfort University

Year dc:date.issued

1995

Author dc:creator

• Patel, Nitin

Licence

• https://dora.dmu.ac.uk/bitstreams/c1167cd8-2588-4f55-9014-b0a5bc66937a/download