Interface Design for Decision Support Systems: A Case Study of a Sales Performance Management Tool

Abstract: In this thesis a case study is presented, which explored what structural and visual aspects of a sales performance management tool's user interface that generated most recurrent problems for novice users. The purpose of the case study was to investigate if identified problems related to structural and visual aspects could help improve the current user interface of the sales performance management tool. In order to investigate these objectives was evaluation research conducted, this in the form of five direct user observations, which adopted the think aloud protocol. Qualitative data obtained from the observational study were analyzed using thematic analysis, which helped identify recurring themes within the data. The results from the case study indicate that it is possible to reveal structural and visual problems within a user interface with novice users, this through using the direct observation technique with the think aloud protocol. Problems identified in the observational study showed to be rather superficial, which indicate that evaluating a user interface with novice users has its limitations. Evident from the case study was that all novice users either found or encountered some problems related to structural and visual aspects. Moreover, the results from the case study indicates that evaluating a user interface with novice users can help improve a system's user interface. However, the improvements are likely to be incremental and not radical.