Using a high level formal language for task model-based usability evaluation

Evaluating usability is a challenge in many development projects. We propose a formal high-level task modeling language, called TaMoGolog, to define task model-based usability evaluation. TaMoGolog provides a well-defined syntax and semantics, enables precondition axioms of tasks, states postcondition effects to variables due to tasks execution, provides a rich set of operators for constructing task models of complex system behavior in an accurate and unambiguous form, and gives the facility to express domain knowledge in resulting task models. We suggest a framework to use TaMoGolog and describe the life-cycle for evaluating the usability of software products through formal task models. We further present a tool, called TaMUlator, to manage and automate the proposed evaluation life-cycle at the integrated development environment (IDE) level.