Usability trade-offs for adaptive user interfaces: ease of use and learnability

ABSTRACT

An analysis of context-aware user interfaces shows that adaptation mechanisms have a cost-benefit trade-off for usability. Unpredictable autonomous interface adaptations can easily reduce a system's usability. To reduce this negative effect of adaptive behaviour, we have attempted to help users building adequate mental models of such systems. A user support concept was developed and applied to a context-aware mobile device with an adaptive user interface. The approach was evaluated with users and as expected, the user support improved ease of use, but unexpectedly it reduced learnability. This shows that an increase of ease of use can be realised without actually improving the user's mental model of adaptive systems.

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Index Terms

• Hardware

  • Communication hardware, interfaces and storage

    • Sound-based input / output

• Human-centered computing

  • Accessibility

  • Human computer interaction (HCI)

    • Empirical studies in HCI

    • HCI design and evaluation methods

    • Interaction devices

      • Sound-based input / output

      • Touch screens

    • Interaction paradigms

      • Graphical user interfaces

    • Interaction techniques

      • Auditory feedback

  • Interaction design

    • Interaction design process and methods

      • Interface design prototyping