Usability of user interface styles for learning a graphical software application

This paper examines usability of user interface styles for learning a graphical software application, namely Adobe Flash CS4. An empirical study was performed to investigate the usability attributes of effectiveness, efficiency and satisfaction scores for learning Adobe Flash CS4. There were 32 participants recruited whom consist of interface designers and software developers. A set of 10 tasks were designed to compare the different effects of user interface styles between graphical user interface (GUI) and command line interface (CLI). Performance variables (effectiveness, efficiency, duration, number of errors and number of helps) were measured for tasks performed by all the participants in the test. Satisfaction score was measured using QUIS (Questionnaire for User Interface Satisfaction) tool. The result revealed that the average effectiveness score higher than 75% (96.88%), and average efficiency (7.43) for all the 10 tasks given. The satisfaction score also showed above average (>;3.5) for majority of the user interface satisfaction attributes of software regardless of users´ background.