Gender Differences in Interface Type Task Analysis

The three pillars of usability are efficiency, effectiveness and satisfaction. Today’s human-computer interface (HCI), used in cellular phone, software, Internet, personal digital assistants and others should be designed to meet these three pillars. This research investigates the influence of two different interfaces on usability as they relate to gender. An experiment was conducted such that objective data were first captured while participants were performing specific image editing tasks, followed by a subjective evaluation of the participants’ experience. The independent variables were gender and the interface. The dependent variables were task completion time, perceived ease of use and perceived usefulness. Results suggest that males outperform females in new tasks while using a menu driven interface and both new and common tasks while using an icon based interface. Both genders seem to take longer time to complete the same task (for both common and new) using an icon based interface. It was also found that there was general agreement among gender and interface type on the level of perceived ease of use and perceived usefulness of the image editing software used. Important differences in the distribution characteristics were noted. Implications for researchers and software developers are discussed.