A SYSTEM FOR GENERATING DEVICE-SPECIFIC ACTION SEQUENCES by CLARENCE

SIMPSON, CLARENCE ADRIANO. A System for Generating DeviceSpecific Action Sequences. (Under the direction of Robert St. Amant) As computing devices become more varied and complex, it has been shown that it is useful, perhaps even essential, to begin describing elements of human-computer interaction in more abstract terms. Much of the literature has focused on specific cases of interaction involving certain input devices, tasks, and operating system environments. However, it has thus far been taken for granted that the mapping between the controls on an input device and the low-level tasks being executed with the device are an optimal mapping. We present a system for generating this optimal mapping by classifying input devices and low-level tasks based on the proposed taxonomies, then using a knowledge base to determine the efficiency of using certain classes of input device controls to perform certain classes of tasks. We also present some preliminary work in the use of user modeling to account for cognitive and psychological factors such as user control preference and the relation between action sequence complexity and human memory. A SYSTEM FOR GENERATING DEVICE-SPECIFIC ACTION SEQUENCES by CLARENCE ADRIANO SIMPSON A thesis submitted to the Graduate Faculty of North Carolina State University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Degree of Master of Science