When Two Methods Are Better Than One: Combining User Study With Cognitive Modeling
Knight, A., Pyrzak, G., & Green, C. (2007). When two methods are better than one: Combining user study with cognitive modeling. In M.B. Rosson and D.J. Gilmore (Eds.): Extended Abstracts of the 2007 Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems CHI 2007, (pp. 1783-1788). San Jose, CA: ACM.
We discuss the benefits of combining user studies and cognitive modeling in the context of Firefox tabbed browsing. We studied new users' ability to use tabbed browsing without assistance, and then evaluated alternatives for closing browser tabs to improve the new user experience through user tests and cognitive modeling. In general, our experience highlights the advantages of using user studies and modeling together to do user interface evaluation: user studies provided validation of design intuitions and data to support modeling of user behavior; modeling provided a fast and efficient ability to play "what if" with the design change; the combination of qualitative user test data and quantitative modeling results proved to be a far more convincing package of evidence than either in isolation, given the variety of perspectives in the design and development team.
