Web TANGO Project Melody Ivory (PhD student) Rashmi Sinha (Postdoc) Marti Hearst (Research Advisor) Undergrads - Steve Demby Anthony Lee Dave Lai HCC Retreat July 5, 2000
Research Goal Develop tools to enable designers to compare alternative designs Most usability problems linked to information architecture Navigation Design Information Design Graphic Design Courtesy of Mark Newman
Tools Under Development Web Page Design Tool Use quantitative measures to compare implemented Web pages to highly rated ones Currently 12 metrics (e.g., number of words, links, colors, etc.) Empirical study highlights key metrics that are indicative of highly rated pages Incorporating empirical findings Automatic analysis – identify potential problems Visualizing differences between a page and related, highly rated ones Automatic critique – identify potential problems & suggest improvements
Tools Under Development Simulation Tool (Monte Carlo Simulator) Use simulator to assess implemented and design Web pages Mimic information-seeking behavior (multiple user models) and compute quantitative results (e.g., number of errors and navigation time) Predictions based on empirical findings with quantitative measures Incorporate into DENIM
Tools Under Development Design Tool DENIM Simulator Heuristics Based on empirical findings Metrics Computation Tool Implemented Site
Research Status Metrics Computation Tool New metrics & capabilities E.g., functional types for pages (David) 2 nd empirical study User studies Design Tool Basic UI this summer (Steve) Simulator Tool DENIM incorporation - property sheets (Anthony) More Info
Questions