UDC 004.512
SIMULATION AND ANALYTICAL MODEL TO EVALUATE THE EFFECTIVENESS OF GRAPHICAL USER INTERFACE VISUAL AESTHETICS
A. V. Vostrykh, Ph.D. (Tech.), lecturer, department of applied mathematics and information technologies, Saint-Petersburg university of State fire service of EMERCOM of Russia, Saint Petersburg, Russia;
orcid.org/0000-0002-8261-0712, e-mail: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
The article discusses the scientific task to increase the performance of users in software products, which directly depends on the efficiency of program graphical user interfaces execution. The aim of the work is to develop scientific, methodological and instrumental tools that allow both to evaluate program interfaces in terms of visual aesthetics effectiveness, and to compare the programs that are similar in functionality and purpose. Also, these tools allow us to both assess the performance of users in the analyzed programs and predict the level of their performance during the working day. To achieve this aim, the article identifies interface loads that affect the user during the working day when using programs; the composition of these loads was determined in the form of spectra of effectiveness indicators that assess visual aesthetics of interfaces. Analytical models of cognitive, visual and motor loads were also built. The composition of factors influencing the performance of users in addition to interface loads was also determined. Original formula to calculate user performance when using interfaces of various programs is proposed. A formalized approach that allows one to visualize the dynamics of user performance when using various interfaces, as well as to compare the interfaces of programs similar in functional content in order to select the most effective one is proposed. An original simulation-analytical model is offered to assess the effectiveness of interface visual aesthetics which, in addition to automating the computational processes of evaluating and comparing interfaces, allows real-time monitoring of increase or decrease in cognitive, visual and motor loads depending on changes in characteristics interfaces and user models, as well as predict the level of user performance during the working day.
Key words: : graphical user interface, simulation and analytical model, visual aesthetics, efficiency, load, performance.