提高图形用户界面(graphical user interface)的输入效率,是人机交互中的一项重要研究内容.已有的研究包括点击增强技术和自适应界面技术,前者改变光标的控制方式或呈现方式,后者改变界面上控件的位置布局,但两种技术都存在不足.通过分析界面操作,提出了图形用户界面输入效率的评价模型;然后,在此基础上提出一种人机交互效率优化技术:自适应光标.它以自适应的方式,有选择地对界面上用户可能访问的控件通过点击增强技术支持,实现快速访问.该方法既解决了以往的自适应界面技术因频繁调整控件布局而给用户带来额外认知成本的问题,也克服了点击增强技术仅适用于稀疏控件布局的限制.为了检验其可用性,在控件较多的Visual Studio 上实现了自适应光标技术.实验结果表明,使用自适应光标技术可以将获取目标的时间缩短27.7%,显著提高了图形用户界面的输入效率.

The improvement of input efficiency of graphical user interfaces (GUIs) is an important issue in human computer interaction research. The existing researches include two aspects: pointing techniques and adaptive user interfaces: the formal manipulates either the visual representation or the controlling method of a cursor while the latter adjusts the layout of widgets. However, both approaches suffer drawbacks. This paper analyzes the operations on GUI and presents a quantitative model to evaluate the input efficiency of GUIs. Based on the metric, the study then proposes a novel approach, the adaptive cursor, which adaptively supports a predicted set of widgets with pointing techniques to enable fast access. This approach avoids the extra cognitive cost caused by adaptive user interfaces, which frequently adjust the widget layout. It also extends previous pointing techniques that should have applied only to a sparse layout. To evaluate its usability, the study realizes the adaptive cursor technique on Visual Studio, whose interface contains a considerate number of controls. Experimental result shows that the adaptive cursor can save up to 27.7% of pointing time.

国家自然科学基金(61003005); 高等学校博士学科点专项科研基金(20100002110052)