Model-based evaluation of expert cell phone menu interaction

We describe concepts to support the analysis of cell phone menu hierarchies, based on cognitive models of users and easy-to-use optimization techniques. We present an empirical study of user performance on five simple tasks of menu traversal on a cell phone. Two of the models applied to these tasks, based on GOMS and ACT-R, give good predictions of behavior. We use the empirically supported models to create an effective evaluation process for menu hierarchies. Our work makes three main contributions: a novel and timely study of a new, very common HCI task; new versions of existing models for accurately predicting performance; and a search procedure to generate menu hierarchies that reduce traversal time, in simulation studies, by about a third