The case for supportive evaluation during design

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Abstract
The relevance of human-computer interaction to industry is being questioned, and the emphasis is shifting away from providing generalised support to systematic evaluation methods, typified by cognitive walkthroughs (CW). The evidence suggests that CW has not proved as effective as hoped. This evidence is examined, and the authors argue that the problem lies not with CW or its underlying theory in particular, but with its limited scope and in the increasing dissociation of an evaluation method from its theoretical foundation. Evaluation methods retaining a theoretical element would provide the necessary conceptual support to enable designers to identify, comprehend and resolve usability problems, and would also be less limited than dissociated evaluation methods in their breadth and depth of application. A vision of a ‘supportive evaluation’ tool is presented and cognitive task analysis (CTA), the methodology upon which a proof-of-concept tool has been based is described. Three brief design scenarios are described to illustrate how CTA supports the identification and resolution of usability problems and the role of cognitive modelling in the context of design is discussed.