Abstract
隨著科技的進展，個人電腦的技術日趨成熟，功能也逐漸增強。除了硬體技術進步之外，在軟體方面也呈現蓬勃的發展。近年來，在軟體的研發上，已逐漸朝向整合性軟體的設計趨勢。整合性軟體就是整合了數種不同功能的軟體於一套軟體中，使這幾個軟體間能共享資源。整合性軟體具有減少使用者的學習時間、增加操作的便利性、提高使用效率等特點。而在構成軟體的要素中，與使用者關係最密切的為使用者介面。一個設計不良的使用者介面，會造成不易操作、不易學習等問題。為了改善上述介面設計不良所產生的問題，軟體廠商已逐漸朝向可用性(Usability)的介面設計，例如具有較高可用性的圖形使用者介面(Graphic User Interface,GUI)已被廣為採用。軟體可用性就是使用者可自然正確地使用軟體，並感到滿意的程度。但一個軟體是否真正具有可用性，卻仍缺乏較為簡便、客觀的評估技術，供設計者及使用者做評估之用，因此本研究便針對軟體的可用性評估技術做初步的研究。軟體可用性評估之目的在於改善軟體的設計品質，使其更容易學習與使用。本研究除了從學理上探討軟體可用性評估技術外，且以IBM相容個人電腦環境下的整合性軟體為研究軟體可用性的媒介，進行可用性的評估。此外，並對整合性軟體使用現況作調查，進一步以模擬技術作主、客觀可用性評估之驗證，最後發展出整合性軟體可用性量表(Self Usability Evaluation, SUE)的評估技術。研究結果顯示SUE能夠達到評估軟體可用性之目的，但在量化技術以及主、客觀的關係上，仍需作更進一步的研究，使SUE能夠更為適切的表達出客觀衡量的結果。With the development of information technology,personalcomputers are becoming increasingly powerful and are using inour daily life.It should be pointed out that the advancedhardware cannot work alone,it needs helps of usable advancedsoftware to manifest its intended features. In recent years,integrated software appears to be a popular trend in softwareindustry.The main advantage of integrated software is thatvarious conventional single purposed software,i.e.,wordprocessor,spreadsheet,graphic tools,etc.,can be linked to alowsharing information among each other such that users may savelearning time and operation time,be more convenient,and improveoverall performance.However,since it becomes more complex foran integrated software,the human-computer interaction must besimplified otherwise users may have a hard time in learning andusing the software. The purpose of this research is to developa Self Usability Evaluation tool(SUE) that can be used byintegrated software designers in earlier development stages toevaluate how easy the developing software can be learned andused.It is expected that by using SUE the integrated softwaredeveloped will have high usability and benefit users. Existingsoftware usability evaluation techniques and Microsoft Office,an integrated software package for IBM and compatible PC,werereviewed and a SUE tool was developed.The MS-Office wasselected as a vehicle for usability evaluation and testing.Before formal experiment,a pre-study was conducted toinvestigate users' behaviors and the functions and commandsthey frequently used.Based on the results,a hypermediasimulation of two versions of software interface were developed.Subjects were asked to work through the simulation andsubjective as well as objective data were collected.The resultshows that SUE can achieve the goal of software usabilityevaluation.More subjective and objective data are worth to becollected for further modification of this software usability