THE DERIVATIVE MODEL APPROACH TO IMPROVING ICT USABILITY

This paper describes the novel "Derivative Model approach" to improving the usability of ICT systems, along with a formal usability study to prove the concept of this approach. This approach is grounded in, and makes contemporary, successful research carried out in the 1980s that applied thinking around conceptual and mental models to the field of Human Computer Interaction (HCI). The study found initial evidence that this approach might significantly improve usability in terms of task effectiveness but not in terms of task efficiency. The study also found evidence that the benefits of the approach might improve along with task complexity