Abstract

It is usually very hard, both for designers and users, to reason reliably about user interfaces. This article shows that ‘push button ’ and ‘point and click ’ user interfaces are algebraic structures. Users effectively do algebra when they interact, and therefore we can be precise about some important design issues and issues of usability. Matrix algebra, in particular, is useful for explicit calculation and for proof of various user interface properties. With matrix algebra, we are able to undertake with ease unusally thorough reviews of real user interfaces: this article examines a mobile phone, a handheld calculator and a digital multimeter as case studies, and draws general conclusions about the approach and its relevance to design.

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