Behaviorally Measuring Usability by Analyzing Users’ Mouse Movement Efficiency

Usability—the extent to which a system can be operated to achieve specified goals with effectiveness, efficiency, and satisfaction—is a hallmark of many successful systems. Identifying usability concerns with existing measures, however, can be problematic. We use biased competition theory (BCT) to explain how interfaces with low usability create attentional interference, which can be measured through mouse movement efficiency (MME). We tested our hypotheses in four studies. Study 1 manipulates attentional interference and examines its influence on MME using eye tracking to validate BCT as an appropriate theoretical lens for our research. Study 2 manipulates usability and shows similar markers of attentional interference in MME on a website with two different populations. Study 3 is a field test that compares the reliability of MME in ranking the usability of different components of a commercial web application to rankings produced by a common perceptual measure of usability: perceived ease of use. Collaborating with a Fortune 100 software vendor, Study 4 further demonstrates the efficacy of MME in ranking the usability of various system components compared to a standard industry measure of usability across three different products. The results consistently show that MME can help identify usability differences among parts of systems. The results have implications for facilitating more efficient and temporally precise usability research and mass-deployable usability testing.