Applying Graph Theory to Interaction Design

• Published in: Engineering Interactive Systems Vol. 4940; pp. 501 - 519
• Main Authors: Thimbleby, Harold, Gow, Jeremy
• Format: Book Chapter
• Language: English
• Published: Germany Springer Berlin / Heidelberg 2008; Springer Berlin Heidelberg
• Series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science
• Subjects: Average Cost; Chromatic Number; Interaction Design; Short Path; Small World
• ISBN: 9783540926979; 3540926976
• ISSN: 0302-9743; 1611-3349
• DOI: 10.1007/978-3-540-92698-6_30

Graph theory provides a substantial resource for a diverse range of quantitative and qualitative usability measures that can be used for evaluating recovery from error, informing design tradeoffs, probing topics for user training, and so on. Graph theory is a straight-forward, practical and flexible way to implement real interactive systems. Hence, graph theory complements other approaches to formal HCI, such as theorem proving and model checking, which have a less direct relation to interaction. This paper gives concrete examples based on the analysis of a real non-trivial interactive device, a medical syringe pump, itself modelled as a graph. New ideas to HCI (such as small world graphs) are introduced, which may stimulate further research.