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Previous studies on usability of crowded graphical interfaces that are full of widgets like menus, buttons, palette-tools etc, have shown evidence that they create a fertile environment for information overload and usability problems. In this paper, we investigate the use of multimodal interaction metaphors (visual, vocal and aural) for improving effectiveness of learning functions and completing tasks in one of the most graphically crowded user-interfaces, the user-interface of IDEs (or Interface Design Environments). This investigation was done empirically on two experimental interface design toolkits (TVOID and MMID) which were built especially for the study. Assessment of the visual and multimodal interaction metaphors was carried out by two independent groups of users (A and B) of which each consisted of 15 users. Results showed that the use of speech for input and output along with limited use of the mouse was more effective than interacting visually only using the typical common graphical metaphors: pull-down menus, toolbar, toolbox, properties-table and status-bar.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; layout-grid-mode: char;" align="left"><span class="text"><span style="font-family: ";Arial";,";sans-serif";; font-size: 9pt;">Developers of visual Interface Design Environments (IDEs), like Microsoft Visual Studio and Java NetBeans, are competing in producing pretty crowded graphical interfaces in order to facilitate completion of interface-design tasks. Previous studies have shown that such interfaces cause the user to experience information overload as well as they create a fertile environment for usability problems. In this paper, we empirically investigate speech as an input and output means for solving usability problems with GUI interaction metaphors and enhancing usability of visual IDEs. The empirical investigation aimed at measuring usability of two experimental ID toolkits: typical visual-only (TVOID) and multimodal (MMID) in terms of efficiency, effectiveness and satisfaction. Usability of these two environments was tested twice, over two experimental phases, by four independent groups of users. The first experimental phase was for measuring usability by novel users in order to explore how learnable each of the two experimental toolkits would be. The second phase aimed at measuring usability by well-trained users to study experienced user performance when using a speech recognition ID.</span></span><span style="font-family: ";Arial";,";sans-serif";; font-size: 9pt;"></span></p>