Tool-mediated HCI Modeling Instruction in a Campus_based Software Quality Course

The Keystroke Level Model (KLM) and Fitts’ Law constitute core teaching subjects in most HCI courses, as well as many courses on software design and evaluation. The KLM Form Analyzer (KLM-FA) has been introduced as a practitioner’s tool to facilitate web form design and evaluation, based on these established HCI predictive models. It was also hypothesized that KLMFA can also be used for educational purposes, since it provides step-by-step tracing of the KLM modeling for any web form filling task, according to various interaction strategies or users’ characteristics. In our previous work, we found that KLM-FA supports teaching and learning of HCI modeling in the context of distance education. This paper reports a study investigating the learning effectiveness of KLM-FA in the context of campus-based higher education. Students of a software quality course completed a knowledge test after the lecture-based instruction (pre-test condition) and after being involved in a KLMFA mediated learning activity (post-test condition). They also provided posttest ratings for their educational experience and the tool’s usability. Results showed that KLM-FA can significantly improve learning of the HCI modeling. In addition, participating students rated their perceived educational experience as very satisfactory and the perceived usability of KLM-FA as good to excellent.