This study proposes an intelligent educational decision support system that empowers instructional designers to evaluate online educational contents in order to improve their design and effectiveness. The key challenge in developing it lies in automating and objectifying the evaluation process. To address this, the study pursues two main objectives. The first one is to propose a Multicriteria Approach for Learning Experience Analysis (MALEA) on which we have based the evaluation through the learners’ traces. The second objective consists of proposing the Approach for Content Success Prediction (ACSP), which can be used to evaluate educational content before its deployment. ACSP combines logistic regression and MALEA. This combination helps to guard against the possible imprecision of human judgment affecting the decision-making process. A case study is conducted and proves that the system meets the objective sought and thus is retained for online educational content evaluation. Results are promising with high values of precision, accuracy, specificity, and sensitivity. Different perspectives are finally proposed.

Abstract. The human-computer interaction community has largely defended the use of an iterative process in which the users and stakeholders participate in all activities throughout the development of an interactive system. This work can become challenging when users have an evolving profiles in degenerative diseases (e.g. Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s). The needs of the users at the start of the process may no longer be the same at the end when the system is validated. As consequence, it is important to integrate users in different stages of the disease in the whole process. The involvement of stakeholders (such as healthcare professionals, family members and caregivers) is also crucial for the better understanding of the user’s needs and their evolving profile. This article presents how we deal with the evolving user profile in the development of a communication aid software for people with Parkinson’s disease. To that end, we have customized the ISO 9241-210 human-centred process with a series of human-computer studies from a broad to a more focused goal. It presents this process and the complementary studies carried out with 97 people with Parkinson’s disease, 5 relatives/caregivers and 5 health professionals. In light of the insights gained from this experience, we have formulated several recommendations for human-centred design in the context of a user with an evolving profile. These recommendations outline a human-centred approach to guide the development of software applications for users with evolving profiles.

IoT, Industry 4.0, and ubiquitous applications demand an intense exchange of information between actors (humans, animals, plants, or other objects) and things. Different interaction technologies, techniques, and methods can support it, including RFID, a well-known technology capable of identifying and locating actors. However, the variety of application domains and interaction possibilities jeopardize the use of RFID without a clear understanding of its usage issues. Therefore, we have performed a systematic mapping to characterize the adoption of RFID technology in this kind of interactive software system by intercepting human-computer interaction and software engineering issues. Our goal is to reveal (i) which application domains address RFID; (ii) why RFID is used instead of other technologies; (iii) who interacts through RFID and how the interaction is; (iv) what are the requirements and limitations associated with it; and (v) what are the common quality characteristics and measures which should be considered for their evaluation. The results showed that (i) RFID is specially used for implementing implicit interactions in healthcare, embedded systems, and manufacturing applications. (ii) Passive UHF RFID is usually adopted due to being contactless, low-cost, and well-performing indoors. (iii) It interacts with humans and things in the same proportion, most frequently to collect locations of sensor data constantly. (iv) RFID presents limitations, such as causing electromagnetic interference and not working well near metallic walls. However, tags work under high temperatures and can be well hidden in cement or clothes. (v) Interactive system designers usually create applications with invisible infrastructures, which tend to keep users' focus on the real world.?

While the serious game concept has considerably evolved in the last two decades, it still needs to be clearly differentiated from other types of artifacts. Thus, there is a degree of confusion about the relationship between serious games and other related applications, such as simulators or the repurposing of entertainment games within educational practices for most outside the domain. This article proposes a formal approach toward classifying games, toys, serious games, serious toys, serious repurposing and modding, and simulators. The aim of this theoretical work is twofold. First, on a practical level, this approach aims at helping actors from different ecosystems, such as health, to differentiate between these various devices and use them to their best advantage. Second, from a research perspective, based on a formal approach, our work aims to contribute to developing a taxonomy for gamified intervention with serious purposes. This formal approach demonstrates that unique combinations can be proposed to distinguish each kind of application. In this context, serious games can be seen as a specific purpose and not as a synonym for other existing applications.

The growing importance of new markets on the Internet in the 1990s led to the development of new guidelines and interface design principles ensuring online consumer trust. These guidelines have been rapidly spoofed by attackers who integrated interface design principles maliciously to deceive users with phishing emails. In this paper we propose to adapt an inspection method, Cognitive Walkthrough, to understand how users walk through the processing of a phishing email. 23 experienced evaluators used the proposed method, Cognitive Walkthrough for phishing emails, in a pilot study and gave a feedback on it. The method allows to analyze the areas of a phishing email eliciting users to trust, to act, and to distrust. These areas are then commented allowing to understand the interface design principles exploited maliciously by attackers when they are saying to users: Trust me and click!

Interactive Adaptive Systems (IAS) refer to interactive systems that alter their characteristics automatically according to the user’s needs. The IAS have emerged in several application domains and, accordingly, a high level of quality must be assured during their development. However, evaluating IAS still presents different challenges, as there are a set of unique characteristics that can impact the quality of such systems. Moreover, there does not exist a specific study to guide the assessment of IAS considering their main challenges based on an international standard. The main objective of this research concerns the proposition of an evaluation model suitable to the context of interactive adaptive systems, based on ISO/IEC 25040 standard. In the case study, an adaptive hypermedia system is evaluated following the evaluation process restructured from ISO/IEC 25040, with a focus on the first three activities of this process.

Everyday travel in expanding cities is becoming increasingly complicated. Going to the doctor, to work, to the cinema, or simply discovering the districts of a city requires knowledge of the city and navigation skills. The future challenge is more than just providing correct guidance to make navigation easier; it is more about delivering the relevant information when it is needed and prioritizing the continuous development of the users’ navigation skills. This article aims to present a novel model based on existing literature about the cognitive wayfinding process by proposing a state diagram for interactive system analysis and design. This diagram may help to illustrate different states of the wayfinding task and how navigation aid systems for pedestrians can consider this context awareness to create an adaptive behavior considering the spatial knowledge of the user. A first study, focusing on one state of the wayfinding process: Path Following state, and its results are presented illustrating one example of different studies that can be designed considering our wayfinding model. At the end of this article, we highlight a set of design guidelines that may lead to the next generation of navigation aid systems based on the wayfinding model.

Smartphone users are striving for easy-to-learn and use mobile apps user interfaces. Accomplishing these qualities demands an iterative evaluation of the Mobile User Interface (MUI). Several studies stress the value of providing a MUI with a pleasing look and feel to engaging end-users. The MUI, therefore, needs to be free from all kinds of structural aesthetic defects. Such defects are indicators of poor design decisions interfering with the consistency of a MUI and making it more difficult to use. To this end, we are proposing a tool (Aesthetic Defects DEtection Tool (ADDET)) to determine the structural aesthetic dimension of MUIs. Automating this process is useful to designers in evaluating the quality of their designs. Our approach is composed of two modules. (1) Metrics assessment is based on the static analysis of a tree-structured layout of the MUI. We used 15 geometric metrics (also known as structural or aesthetic metrics) to check various structural properties before a defect is triggered. (2) Defects detection: The manual combination of metrics and defects are time-consuming and user-dependent when determining a detection rule. Thus, we perceive the process of identification of defects as an optimization problem. We aim to automatically combine the metrics related to a particular defect and optimize the accuracy of the rules created by assigning a weight, representing the metric importance in detecting a defect. We conducted a quantitative and qualitative analysis to evaluate the accuracy of the proposed tool in computing metrics and detecting defects. The findings affirm the tool’s reliability when assessing a MUI’s structural design problems with 71% accuracy.

This work presents a baseline for remotely monitoring patients with Alzheimer's disease (AD), on an everyday's life basis, using distributed tangible tabletops. Our proposed system aims to help individuals with AD live at home independently of physical presence of caregivers, nurses, and/or family members, since these latter can assist the patients with AD and monitor their activity through a virtually duplicated (dual reality) environment. This monitoring happens in real time, and monitors can encourage and remind patients with AD to take actions, while respecting their privacy. The interaction is achieved by moving physical (tangible) and/or virtual (digital) objects on the tabletop's surface, or by displaying messages and reminders on its surface. A first prototype is described and illustrated, as well as propositions to validate and extend the system.

As road traffic is becoming increasingly dense, new needs in terms of intelligent human-machine interaction are emerging for their control by human operators. One avenue of research consists in assisting them in their control task by an assistant agent. This paper presents a feasibility study in this field, involving interactions between humans and an assistant agent. For this purpose, a game theory-based model is proposed in order to be able to model a context-sensitive system for the cooperative realization of complex tasks. In this case, the participants of the game are human operators and an assisting agent interacting within the framework of the realization of a control task. Thus, each participants can choose an action between two possible ones (to cooperate or not). Then, the proposed utility functions allow to build the context-sensitive payoff matrix at each observation cycle of the human-machine interaction. To validate our model, we have implemented a simulated control situation; it concerns the regulation of traffic through intersections; this involves two human operators and an assistant agent. Thus, the assistant agent uses the game payoff matrix for its decision-making in using Nash equilibrium. This paper describes a feasibility study, focusing on an analysis of the results obtained during the execution of the simulation. Different research perspectives arise from this study in order to improve and generalize the proposed model.

This work contributes to the field of human-system interaction modeling through an artificial intelligence approach. It focuses on the cooperative realization of a complex task. For this purpose, we propose a human-agent interaction model based on game theory to describe the decision making between the human operator and the assistant agent. The proposed model is based on searching Nash equilibria for a repeated two-player game in which each player has a choice between two actions. In particular, the assistant agent knows how to calculate the equilibrium that depends on information coming from the context (human operator and work environment). This approach allows us to consider a context aware human-machine system. Then, the assistant agent knows how to optimize its intervention with regard to the human operator assisted by this agent during a complex task. For the validation of our model, we highlight the efficiency of the assistant agent using this principle by considering a road traffic simulator using Netlogo. An analysis of the simulation results is provided to illustrate the effectiveness of our approach.

Abstract Do human–computer interaction (HCI) researchers agree about which HCI approaches should be used in the development of an interactive system? To address this question, we performed a study based on the engineering process areas (requirements development, technical solution, product integration, verification and validation) of the CMMI-DEV (Capability Maturity Model Integration for Development), a software engineering model commonly used in the industry. To carry out this study, a literature review was performed, a specific instrument was designed based on CMMI-DEV and interviews with 20 researchers from the HCI domain were conducted. Analyzing the interview data with monovariate and multivariate statistical approach (Multiple Correspondence Analysis - MCA), we find the greatest agreement occurred among researchers for HCI approaches that support verification and validation phases and the use of functional prototypes in some activities of the last phases of software development (technical solution and product integration). However, we identified lack of agreement among researchers regarding requirements development activities.

Bimanual input is frequently used on touch and tangible interaction on tabletop surfaces. Considering a composite task, such as moving a set of objects, attention, decision making and fine motor control have to be phased with the coordination of the two hands. However, attention demand is an important factor to design easy to learn and recall interaction techniques. This, determining what interaction modality demands less attention and which one performs better in these conditions is important to improve design. In this work, we present the first empirical results on this matter. We report that users are consistent in their assessments of the attention demand for both touch and tangible modalities, even under different hands synchronicity, and different population sizes and densities. Our findings indicate that the one hand condition and small populations demand less attention comparing to respectively, two hands conditions and bigger populations. Also, we show that tangible modality reduces significantly the attention when using two hands synchronous movements or when moving the sparse populations, decreases the movement time over touch modality, without compromising the traveled distance. We use our findings to outline a set of guidelines to assist touch and tangible design.

The MPS for Software reference model (MR-MPSSW) is one of the models currently used in Brazilian industry. This software process capability maturity (SPCM) model describes Software Engineering (SE) practices that are applied in the software development by the use of approaches (such as methods, techniques and so on). The Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) community has defined specific approaches (methods, techniques, patterns, and standards) for the conception, design, implementation, and evaluation of interactive systems development. Nevertheless, the literature points out that those approaches are not sufficiently used in industry. Taking advantage of the large use of SPCM models, we have identified HCI approaches that could support SPCM practices related to five processes (Requirements Development, Design and Construction of the Product, Product Integration, Verification and Validation) advocated by the MR-MPS-SW. Analyzing the HCI literature and MR-MPS-SW, we identified a set of HCI approaches for interactive systems development. We interviewed twenty HCI experts to validate and improve this initial set. Thus, we identified 14 HCI categories with examples of methods, techniques, patterns, and standards adequate for performing SE practices of the MR-MPS-SW when developing interactive systems.

This paper aims to present an experience report on a new pedagogical technique which applies to the teaching of interactive systems: the Living Persona technique. First, we review the well-known technique of Persona that is used in some processes of realization of interactive systems. In this technique, a Persona represents an archetype of the users interacting in the system to be produced. From this Persona technique, we define the Living Persona one. Within the framework of practical work students have to specify an interactive system, this technique of Living Persona consists in making the teacher play the role of a representative of the contracting authority, who is also potentially a future user of the system to be specified. As a consequence, during his meetings with the students, the teacher has to adopt a behavior in compliance with the state of mind of the users' archetype defined by the Persona. Then we present a pedagogical scenario which integrates this Living Persona technique and we apply it to a practical work in which the students must produce an interactive system specification using the Unified Modeling Language (UML). We show through a classroom experience that the practical work set up provides students with work situations close to professional realities. We evaluate the level of interactions between students and teacher and the extent to which this pedagogy influences some students behaviors. Finally, the continuation of our research is highlighted.

A new set of Non-Functional Requirements (NFRs) have appeared with the advent of Ubiquitous Computing (UbiComp) and more recently Internet of Things (IoT). Invisibility is one of these NFRs that means the ability to hide technology from users. Although invisibility is long seen as an essential characteristic for achieving the goals of UbiComp, it has not been cataloged regarding its subcharacteristics and solutions, making its design and requirements specification in such applications a challenging task. Considering the Softgoal Interdependency Graph (SIG), which is a well-known format to catalog NFRs, this work aims at capturing subcharacteristics and solutions for Invisibility and cataloging them in a SIG. Since there is no systematic approach on how to build SIGs, we also propose to systematize the definition of Invisibility SIG using the following well-defined research methods: snowballing, database search, grounded theory and questionnaires. As a result, we got an Invisibility SIG composed of two main subcharacteristics, twelve sub-subcharacteristics, ten general solutions and fifty-six specific solutions. This organized body of knowledge is useful for supporting software engineers to specify requirements and practical solutions for UbiComp and IoT applications. Furthermore, the proposed methodology used to capture and catalog requirements in a SIG can be reused for other NFRs.

Abstract Human‐computer interaction (HCI) and software engineering (SE) are undoubtedly important domains for the development of interactive systems. The quality of an interactive system is usually considered dependent on the user interface design and evaluation, which implies the use of HCI and SE approaches on the adequate software process. With the wide use of software process capability maturity (SPCM) models in the industry and their role of proposing best practices for software development and maintenance, some questions come up: To what extent are HCI approaches known and used to develop interactive systems? What is their level of use compared to SE approaches? To answer these questions, we conducted an empirical study in the Brazilian industry. Thirty‐six official consultants for the 2 SPCM models used in Brazil (CMMI‐DEV and MR‐MPS‐SW) provided us with their perception of knowledge and use concerning a set of predefined categories of approaches for HCI and SE that support the engineering practices of those SPCM models. By using a pairedttest, we concluded that consultants of those models do not know and do not use HCI approaches as well as they know and use SE approaches. Moreover, they know little about HCI approaches, which may justify their poor use.

International audience

Successful usability evaluation of interactive adaptive systems requires the use of appropriate methods. Different usability evaluation methods exist in the literature. These methods can be applied in association with the individual layers and with the whole adaptive system. In each situation, it is essential to apply the appropriate evaluation methods. In this paper, we propose a novel decision support approach called EvalCHOICE. It guides evaluators in the choice of appropriate usability evaluation methods for individual layers and the adaptive system as a whole. Our proposal is applied to determine the suitable evaluation methods for a given Web-based adaptive system in the field of transport.

The technological revolution has been accompanied with the appearance of mobile systems. Mobile Knowledge Management Systems (KMS) which introduce a new style of managing organizations using mobile devices, are used in different contexts of use. So, a context based evaluation of such systems becomes required. Our contribution consists of enhancing the evaluation of mobile KMS that was previously confined to the classifier performance evaluation. In this work, we propose a quality model which ensures a global evaluation of mobile KMS. The proposed quality model evaluates the mobile KMS regarding three dimensions: classifier performance, usability and quality of promotion. It defines a set of criteria and allows their measurement. To validate the proposed approach, an evaluation system has been developed. The results obtained from a series of evaluation results drawing on 20 users show that the continuous change of the context affects the use of a mobile KMS.

Usability is a crucial factor for interactive adaptive system success. Several methods have been proposed to support the usability evaluation of interactive adaptive systems. However, the diversity of these methods leaves the evaluators wondering what would be the most appropriate usability evaluation methods for their specific goals. This paper examines the characteristics of usability evaluation methods for interactive adaptive systems and identifies the most relevant features for categorizing them. The comparison and classification of these methods will serve as a reference for researchers in the field of interactive adaptive systems and as a guide for the choice of suitable usability evaluation methods.

The evaluation of interactive adaptive systems is the source of many difficulties for novice evaluators as well as for expert ones. Issues arise in the need to identify the appropriate evaluation methods to be used for a given evaluation context. This paper proposes an approach for the choice of evaluation methods for interactive adaptive systems with regard to their suitability depending on specific evaluation contexts. A multicriteria decision making approach, namely the Analytic Hierarchy Process, is proposed for the selection methodology. The approach is based on a pair-wise comparison of a number of criteria that affect the choice of the appropriate evaluation methods. Four user-centred evaluation methods in conjunction with the layered evaluation for interactive adaptive systems are presented in the cases studies. These methods are: user-as-wizard, heuristic evaluation, focus group, and user test. The proposed approach is flexible in the sense that it can be used in the case of different evaluation methods. The results depend on the evaluation context where the methods will be used. Hence, we illustrate the proposed approach in the case of two evaluation contexts.

Even though coming from different communities, Software Engineering (SE) and Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) engineering have similar goals: the definition of methods, techniques and standards to support the development of software systems, and, in particular for HCI, of interactive systems. Currently, several SE approaches are largely applied in practice thank to the widespread use of capability maturity models in companies. To benefit from this situation and taking advantage of the similarity of SE and HCI goals, we have studied how to support the developers that use these models with approaches from HCI while developing interactive systems. In this paper we present the part of this study regarding requirements development process, an undoubtedly important area from software life cycle. This study involves a detailed analysis of one of the most known models (the CMMI-DEV — Capability Maturity Model Integration for Developers) and interview with twenty experts in HCI domain. As result, a set of HCI approaches to support the developers in the requirements development process area is presented.

Mobile applications, which introduce a new style of interaction between the final user and the mobile systems, are used in different contexts of use. So, a context based evaluation of the Quality in Use (QinU) of such systems becomes required. In this work, we present a method towards supporting evaluators to assess QinU of mobile systems. We propose a context model that defines a set of contextual attributes for considering the mobility aspect during the evaluation. Also, we provide an evaluation support system that allows a quantitative measurement of criteria defined by ISO/IEC 25010 QinU model. We show that the continuous change of the context affects the use of a mobile system by presenting a series of evaluation results drawing on 6 user profiles.

An interactive tabletop equipped with RFID technology implemented the Stroop and reverse-Stroop tasks. Participants moved a tangible object into one of four displayed virtual zones, which were identified either by a color border or the name of a color written in black. The correct target zone corresponded either to the color (Stroop) or meaning (reverse Stroop) of a word displayed in congruent or incongruent colored LED lights (e.g., “YELLOW” displayed in yellow or red, respectively). Participants took more time to place the object in a zone, made more errors, and found the task more difficult when the word was lit with an incongruent than congruent color. This interference was influenced by both the types of task and response zone in a way that fits with a dual step processing account. Results also showed that the outcomes of the conflicting information streams might be judged as fun.

The evaluation of interactive adaptive systems is considered as a difficult endeavour due to the complex nature of these systems. Issues arise in the need to identify, for a given evaluation situation the set of suitable usability evaluation methods to be used by the evaluators. This paper describes a framework for supporting the choice of appropriate methods for the usability evaluation of interactive adaptive systems. It is based on the comparison of usability evaluation methods using relevant criteria. This framework is then validated through a case study; it concerns an adaptive hypermedia system in transportation field.

To create an adapted and effective data entry system, we need to answer to a number of questions. Who is the system user? What tasks can be completed with the system? Where is the system used? What are the tools that can help the user during data entry? The answers to these questions represent the data entry context and the needs of the user. This paper concerns data entry assistance for data coding in the healthcare domain. We propose a contextual data entry system dedicated to healthcare professionals. The name of our system is Hermes. The aim of Hermes is to manage a set of data entry tools. A data entry tool is selected according to the context of the user's data entry. Finally, we test the performance of our system by simulating scenarios. The results are presented and discussed in this paper.

In this article, evaluation-based widgets are proposed as a contribution to assist evaluators for early evaluation of user interfaces. This contribution imbricates the ergonomic quality evaluation process into widgets used for user-interface graphical composition. In other words, these widgets evaluate themselves according to a defined set of ergonomic guidelines. The proposed widgets indicate the possible interface design ergonomic inconsistencies as a notification to the designer. The guidelines set can be modified through an interface dedicated to guidelines definition into XML files. The proposed widgets are intended for the evaluation of different kind of user interfaces: WIMP, web, and mobile. An experimental evaluation, involving these evaluation-based widgets, is proposed to illustrate and to validate the approach.

International audience

Approaches to service design share human–computer interaction's (HCI's) commitment to developing with and for people useful, usable and accessible services. However, there has been little explicit interaction between the emerging service sciences and the interaction design communities. This article explores HCI's actual position and opportunities to service design and requirements and vice versa. We propose a design framework for service-oriented interactive systems integrating the concept of persona. This enables to extract relevant elements towards deriving the design of the main functionalities of the user interface. This framework is applied to a case study of the e-maintenance of an agro-alimentary group.

After having outlined the uses of new technologies such as smartphones, touch-screen tablets, and laptops, this article presents the TangiSense interactive tabletop, equipped with RFID technology tagged on tangible objects, as a new paradigm of interaction for ambient intelligence. Within its framework, this article aims to distribute surfaces (tables) interacting mainly with tangible objects. Leads for interactive surface distribution such as interactive tables are given. The article proposes to describe some tangible objects, which are the interaction supports; these are called Tangigets. They are defined according to an augmented Presentation-Abstraction-Control structure to take the tangibility element into account. Six categories of Tangigets are also proposed, which are tangible objects, and the supports of distributed collaboration. To validate the Tangiget concept and its use on the TangiSense tabletop, illustrations in centralized and distributed configurations are proposed. A first evaluation is also presented. To conclude, the article presents the directions under consideration for our future research.

Training professionals to design and produce interactive systems requires the use of well thought-out training scenarios. Indeed, it is essential to consider pedagogical forms whose objective is providing learners with field experience. It is also necessary to motivate learners to learn about subjects that sometimes seem distant from their immediate concerns and to renew their interest in these subjects. This article presents a tool, called GRASP, that helps design pedagogical devices. This tool was first evaluated through three educational initiatives implemented in two universities in the north of France. These initiatives were analyzed to enhance the tool. Then, a second evaluation was conducted to validate the tool more widely. The first part of this article presents the scientific context. Then the design tool, the evaluation protocol, and the three devices built using this tool and their evaluation are introduced. Some of the lessons learned during the initiatives are described. Next, the second evaluation, conducted with more teachers, is presented. Finally, the conclusion highlights the perspectives opened by these initiatives.

This article discusses interactive system evaluation from the perspective of inspection methods, specifically the Cognitive Walkthrough (CW) method. The basic principles of CW are reviewed as proposed in the original version and the first two revisions. Then 11 significant extensions of CW are examined: Heuristic Walkthrough, The Norman Cognitive Walkthrough Method, Streamlined Cognitive Walkthrough, Cognitive Walkthrough for the Web, Groupware Walkthrough, Activity Walkthrough, Interaction Walkthrough, Cognitive Walkthrough with Users, Extended Cognitive Walkthrough, Distributed Cognitive Walkthrough, and Enhanced Cognitive Walkthrough. Four summaries are proposed: The first one concerns the conceptual, methododological, and technological aspects; the next two summaries deal with existing studies, first comparative and then noncomparative; and the last summary provides help for choosing a version or variant.

In this paper we propose an approach aiming to integrate human-computer interaction (HCI) aspects in decision support system (DSS) development. We propose an approach combining two methods: one issued from software engineering field (the rational unified process) and the other one from the HCI field (the U model). We have tested our approach in a DSS set up in the healthcare domain: the supervision of nosocomial infections in an intensive care unit.

Many evaluation methods are to be found in research literature: they can be formal, automatic, empirical or informal.The informal methods include so-called inspection methods, which provide a good compromise between the cost and implementation time on the one hand, and the results they make it possible to obtain on the other.Amongst these methods, Cognitive Walkthrough enables the detection of a certain number of usability defects and the estimation of the degree of seriousness of the defect.In this article, we concentrate on Cognitive Walkthrough.We are particularly interested in it because, as far as we know, it is the only method based on theory (the theory of learning through exploration, itself inspired by Norman's Action Theory).However, although its usefulness as regards software ergonomics has been recognised, its efficiency in the case of multimedia applications is still far from being proved and very few research projects have been published on the matter.In fact, multimedia documents have characteristics which differ from those of traditional human-machine systems.This article presents a study on the use of Cognitive Walkthrough for the evaluation of several multimedia applications intended for the general public; it reveals the difficulties met by users and the areas in which the method needs to be adapted.

International audience

An important field of current research is that of the design and implementation of intelligent human-machine interfaces (HMIs). This article reviews a number of concepts concerning intelligent interfaces, taking as its starting point the well-known ARCH model of HMI, with particular concern for the ability of such interfaces to be flexible, adaptive, tolerant of human error, and supportive both of human operators and intelligent agents.