Annotating UI Architecture with Actual Use

Abstract

Developing an appropriate user interface architecture for supporting a system's tasks is critical to the system's overall usability. While there are principles to guide architectural design, confirming that the correct decisions are made can involve the collection and analysis of lots of test data. We are developing a testing environment that will automatically compare and contrast the actual user interaction data against the existing user interface architectural models. This can help a designer more clearly understand how the actual tasks performed relate to the proposed architecture, and enhances feedback between different design artifacts.