Evaluating the usability on multimodal interfaces: A case study on tablets applications

Abstract

Usability has become the main quality attribute on the development of digital devices. Meanwhile, the new interaction paradigms represent a great challenge for usability. Traditional methods for usability evaluation may not be appropriated to the nature of these new interaction models. This paper introduces a new set of usability heuristics for multimodal paradigm, specially multitouch and speech-based interaction. We analyzed traditional usability heuristics, characteristics of multitouch and speech-based interaction, and guidelines for developers, aiming to reach a satisfactory result. A comparative case study between our proposal and Nielsen's heuristics is then conducted. © 2014 Springer International Publishing Switzerland.