Abstract
Graph theory provides a substantial resource for a diverse range of quantitative and qualitative usability measures that can be used for evaluating recovery from error, informing design tradeoffs, probing topics for user training, and so on.
Graph theory is a straight-forward, practical and flexible way to implement real interactive systems. Hence, graph theory complements other approaches to formal HCI, such as theorem proving and model checking, which have a less direct relation to interaction.
This paper gives concrete examples based on the analysis of a real non-trivial interactive device, a medical syringe pump, itself modelled as a graph. New ideas to HCI (such as small world graphs) are introduced, which may stimulate further research.
The original version of the book was revised: The copyright line was incorrect. The Erratum to the book is available at DOI: 10.1007/978-3-540-92698-6_37
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Thimbleby, H., Gow, J. (2008). Applying Graph Theory to Interaction Design. In: Gulliksen, J., Harning, M.B., Palanque, P., van der Veer, G.C., Wesson, J. (eds) Engineering Interactive Systems. EHCI 2007. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 4940. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-540-92698-6_30
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