Usability Mining : Automated Analysis of Information System Usability based on Process Mining

Abstract

The usability of information systems (IS) is a key characteristic in the context of software selection and IS design. IS are supposed to support various functions in business organizations in an effective and efficient way, to be easy to use and easy to learn, and to produce satisfactory outcomes for users. Research has sought to engineer IS based on automated usability checks, but while the concept of process mining offers considerable potential in this context, so far only little research has been done on the potential of process mining approaches for automating analyses of IS usability. We describe the journeys through and the results of several design research projects that have investigated the potential of combining process mining approaches and usability engineering (i.e., usability mining). The design artifacts presented in this study elucidate the potential of usability mining in the context of usability studies, focusing on mobile policing applications developed and used in several projects in Germany. We present a dedicated reference framework for the design of usability mining solutions and a software implementation that we use to illustrate the artifacts’ applications in the mobile policing scenario. We present the results of several design projects in which we gathered experience concerning usability mining and its application in real-world scenarios. While the development of a usability mining solution can be managed according to certain design recommendations, data preparation and data cleansing present particular challenges in usability mining endeavors.