Using probabilistic finite state models to evaluate human-computer interfaces

The development of a technique for modeling and analytically evaluating human-computer interfaces is described. The modeling technique is supported by an extensive set of theorems and algorithms which describe the various model building phases. The theorems and algorithms show that the representation of each human-computer interface converges to a single probabilistic finite state model which accurately represents the human-computer interaction. The resulting probabilistic finite state model is then used as a predictor to generate data which can be statistically analyzed to yield a comparison between alternative human-computer interfaces