Development and evaluation of a model of behavioral representation techniques

A user-centered approach to interactive system development requires a way to represent the behavior of a user interacting with an interface. While a number of behavioral representation techniques exist, not all provide the capabilities necessary to support the interaction development process. Based on observations of existing representation techniques and comments from users of the User Action Notation (UAN), a user- and task-centered behavioral representation technique, we have developed a model of behavioral representation techniques. Our model is an epistemological framework for discussing, analyzing, extending, and comparing existing behavioral representation techniques, as well as being a springboard for developing and evaluating new techniques. We present the model and results of our evaluation demonstrating the model's reusability and utility within the context of behavioral representation techniques.