This paper describes a multimedia user interface design method and a design assistant tool which supports the method. The method covers specification of user requirements and information architecture, selection of appropriate media to represent the information content, design for directing attention to important information, and interaction design to enhance user engagement. Guidelines for media selection and design for attractiveness, i.e. usability and user experience, are given. The method was evaluated in a case study design of a crowd control simulation training system, which demonstrated the method was usable and gave good solutions against an expert gold standard design. The tool provides advice on media selection and attention effects that match specification of the information content expressed as information types and communication goals. A usability evaluation was carried out to measure the usefulness and effectiveness of the tool in comparison to the method, and the results showed that the tool has a positive impact on multimedia design.

Visual search is an important part of human-computer interaction. It is critical that we build theory about how people visually search displays in order to better support the users ’ visual capabilities and limitations in everyday tasks. One way of building such theory is through computational cognitive modeling. The ultimate promise for cognitive modeling in HCI it to provide the science base needed for predictive interface analysis tools. This paper discusses computational cognitive modeling of the perceptual, strategic, and oculomotor processes people used in a visual search task. This work refines and rounds out previously reported cognitive modeling and eye tracking analysis. A revised “minimal model ” of visual search is presented that explains a variety of eye movement data better than the original model. The revised model uses a parsimonious strategy that is not tied to a particular visual structure or feature beyond the location of objects. Three characteristics of the minimal strategy are discussed in detail. Author Keywords Visual search, cognitive modeling, cognitive strategies, eye