Objective, quantitative method for measuring the mental effort of managing a computer-human interface

Patent 6295509 Issued on September 25, 2001. Estimated Expiration Date:

October 13, 2018. Estimated Expiration Date is calculated based on simple USPTO term provisions. It does not account for terminal disclaimers, term adjustments, failure to pay maintenance fees, or other factors which might affect the term of a patent.

Abstract Claims Description Full Text

Patent References

Method to assess the physical effort to acquire physical targets
Patent #: 5880723
Issued on: 03/09/1999
Inventor: Driskell

Method to assess the physical effort to acquire physical targets Patent #: 5933138
Issued on: 08/03/1999
Inventor: Driskell

Inventor

Driskell, Stanley W.

Application

No. 170791 filed on 10/13/1998

US Classes:

702/182, Performance or efficiency evaluation707/1, DATABASE OR FILE ACCESSING707/3, Query processing (i.e., searching)707/6Pattern matching access

Examiners

Primary: Hoff, Marc S.
Assistant: Vo, Hieu T.

International Class

G06F 003/00

Abstract

Signals emitted by a computer's input devices are captured in chronological order and identified as occurrences of one or more predefined classes descriptive of relevant activity performed during a work session. To achieve human comprehensibility of final analysis but allow for efficient computer processing these class occurrences are assigned both textual names and unique binary tokens. Individual tokens of the various strings are processed to determine the information quantity embodied by each. To appraise implications of serial correlation among tokens, groups of contiguous tokens are analyzed and information redundancy and information balance determined. Resulting data provide the basis for generating quantitative, objective measures of: (1) overall cognitive effort of employing a software, (2) performance of typical users relative to expert users, (3) ease of learning, and (4) inefficiency due to error. These measures permit usability comparisons: between proposed computer-human interfaces; between extant computer-human interfaces; and between computer operators utilizing a given application software to perform a standard activity suite.