Critical human-machine interfaces are present in many systems including avionics systems and medical devices. Use error is a concern in these systems both in terms of hardware panels and input devices, and the software that drives the interfaces. Guaranteeing safe usability, in terms of buttons, knobs and displays is now a key element in the overall safety of the system. New integrated development environments (IDEs) based on formal methods technologies have been developed by the research community to support the design and analysis of high-confidence human-machine interfaces. To date, little work has focused on the comparison of these particular types of formal IDEs. This paper compares and evaluates two state-of-the-art toolkits: CIRCUS, a model-based development and analysis tool based on Petri net extensions, and PVSio-web, a prototyping toolkit based on the PVS theorem proving system.

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While interactive systems have the potential to increase human work performance, those systems are predisposed to usability problems. Different factors might contribute to these problems during the interaction process and as result, the decision-making process might be compromised. This work uses decision support system methods and tools to assist in the analysis of the usability of a university library website, measuring the constructs of effectiveness, efficiency, and learnability. The pilot study involved thirty-five subjects, and after collecting data, a multidimensional view of the data is created and discussed. Later, a What-if analysis is used to investigate the impact of different scenarios on system-use. The work has the potential to assist designers and system administrators at improving their systems.

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