User-friendly support environment for requirement analysis in user interface design

Since user interface directly affects the usability of software, more systematic and efficient methods and tools that support user interface development are needed. Most of user interface development tools currently existing are focused on implementation phase, such as supporting using and managing GUI components, organizing and arranging layout, and testing prototype interfaces. These kinds of tools or environments fall short of answering key questions such as how components in a given dialog box can be used to accomplish a particular user task. Furthermore, it is not easy to learn or use them because they require using programming or scripting language in order to specify user interaction. This paper describes our tool, USE, which provides extracting GUI components from the user/task model and examining the usability of designed user interface through the storyboarding mechanism