The evaluation of the usability and the learnability of a computer system may be performed with predictive models during the design phase. It may be done on the executable code as well by observing the end user in action. In this case, data collected in vivo must be processed. Our goal is to provide a software support for performing this difficult task. This article presents an early analysis and experience towards the automatic evaluation of multimodal user interfaces. With this end in view, a

more »

... generic Wizard of Oz platform has been designed to allow the observation and the automatic recording of subjects'behavior while interacting with a multimodal interface. We then show how recorded data can be analyzed to detect behavioral patterns, and how deviations of such patterns from a data flow-oriented task model can be exploited by a software usability critic. KEYWORDS Capture of behavioral data, multimodal user interface, Wizard of Oz, user interface evaluation techniques. ABSTRACT The evaluation of the usability and the learnability of a computer system may be performed with predictive models during the design phase. It may be done on the executable code as well by observing the user in action. In this case, data collected in vivo must be processed. Our goal is to provide a software support for performing this difficult task. This article presents an early analysis and experience towards the automatic evaluation of multimodal user interfaces. With this end in view, a generic Wizard of Oz platform has been designed to allow the observation and the automatic recording of subjects'behavior while interacting with a multimodal interface. We then show how recorded data can be analyzed to detect behavioral patterns, and how deviations of such patterns from a data flow-oriented task model can be exploited by a software usability critic. KEYWORDS Capture of behavioral data, multimodal user interface, Wizard of Oz, user interface evaluation techniques.