Keystroke Level Modeling as a Cost Justification Tool

Publisher Summary Keystroke level modeling (KLM) is a type of cognitive modeling technique that has been reported in the literature over the last two decades. It is the simplest and most basic of a family of modeling techniques that have evolved over the past two decades. KLM, simply put, involves identifying and counting all of the discrete human operations: physical, cognitive and perceptual, that a user must execute to efficiently accomplish a specific task on a specific user interface design. As discussed in this chapter, modeling is a valid and useful cost-justification technique for projects. It allows business managers to predict accurately, whether or not productivity gains, required to cost-justify new development effort, would be achieved. In addition, it enables an analysis of those tasks predicted to fail to meet business goals, which in turn drive redesigning to achieve those goals again, long before launch, when it is much cheaper and easier to make design changes. The productivity data from the proposed application, when finally collected, validates the model results generated earlier. In addition, it is demonstrated that goal productivity can be achieved quite quickly; it was in fact achieved on most tasks after only a brief training program and several hours of practice time.