The GOMS Family of Analysis Techniques: Tools for Design and Evaluation

  • Authors:

  • Bonnie E. John;David E. Kieras

  • Affiliations:

  • -;-

  • Venue:
  • The GOMS Family of Analysis Techniques: Tools for Design and Evaluation
  • Year:
  • 1994

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Abstract

Since the seminal Card, Moran, & Newell (1983) book, "The psychology of human-computer interaction", the concept of the GOMS model has been one of the few widely known theoretical concepts in human-computer interaction. This concept has spawned much research to verify and extend the original concept and has been used in real-world design and evaluation situations. The original presentation of the GOMS concept left substantial room for interpretation and subsequent researchers and practitioners have applied the idea in a variety of ways. While this variety shows that the GOMS concept is fruitful, there is some confusion about the GOMS concept and the various approaches that share this label yet appear to be radically different. This paper synthesizes the previous work on GOMS to provide an integrated view of GOMS models and how they can be used in design. The major variants of GOMS that have matured sufficiently be be used in real-world design and evaluation situations are described and related to the original GOMS proposal and to each other. A single example is used to illustrate all of the techniques. Guidance is provided to practitioners who wish to use GOMS for their design and evaluation problems, and examples of actual applications of GOMS techniques are presented.