Organizing human factors knowledge for the evaluation and design of interfaces

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Abstract
This paper presents research conducted in the area of human factors knowledge collection and organization. Providing that a large amountof human factors engineering data is available now concerning user interface aspects, this research started from the following question: Can this knowledge be transferred to user interface designers, and by which means can this be done? An important part of human factors knowledge is included in recommendations and guidelines. It is the problems with that type of knowledge that this paper focuses on. A first attempt to tackle some of these problems is made by offering a generic model for deciphering recommendations into rules. This model stresses the importance of attributes such as human factors criteria, classes of premises, and conclusions, as well as interface objects. Definitions of criteria for organizing recommendations are offered, and a few examples of rule‐based reasoning are provided. The remaining problems with a rule approach are then discussed according to two dimensions: intrinsic problems and usage problems. In addition, it appears that an approach based on literature recommendations is not sufficient. Other areas that need further work are described, particularly concerning task and interface modelling, and human factors expertise modelling. The paper concludes on the limits and benefits of such an approach.

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