Efficiency, Effectiveness, and User Satisfaction of Web-Based Ontology Browsers

As the use of ontologies expands, their visualizations are becoming more important. In this study, an ontology browser for visualizing the Trajectory Simulation ONTology (TSONT) was evaluated in terms of usability by utilizing eye-tracking technology. The methodology of evaluating an ontology browser is reported along with the results of the current evaluation. The TSONT Browser is a tree type ontology browser created to allow developers to visualize TSONT. Six flight simulation programmers with at least one year of experience participated in the study. Participants were given usability tasks, and their voices and eye movements were recorded by sound recorder and eye-tracker, respectively. Data were analyzed against usability and functionality criteria. Results showed that guidance and terminology influence the efficiency, effectiveness, and user satisfaction of ontology browsers. The results reveal important insights to requisites of general usability, even in simple text-based interfaces.