Communicative ngomsl: Development of an evaluation method for a text-based communication system

Goals, Operators, Methods, and Selection rules (GOMS) is an analytic method and a model evaluation method for the knowledge necessary for a user to perform tasks in a system, and Natural GOMS Language (NGOMSL), a version of GOMS, is an attempt to define a language so that the GOMS model can be precisely constructed in a structured way. This study proposes Communicative NGOMSL, which is an extension of NGOMSL intended to accommodate modeling of text-based communication among two or more individuals. Besides the properties of GOMS techniques in evaluation, Communicative NGOMSL additionally considers common ground and communication time: Common ground refers to the mutual knowledge, beliefs, and assumptions of participants in communication, and communication time refers to the time that an individual waits for another to respond. The analysis of a Communicative NGOMSL model provides some information for a common task goal in a text-based communication system: (a) the relationship between the grounding process and Communicative NGOMSL statements, (b) the ratio of communication time to execution time for each individual, and (c) the balance among individuals in terms of learning time and mental workload. A demonstration of Communicative NGOMSL is provided through a sample case-a virtual text-based chat tool for exchanging addresses between two individuals. Future work needed to address the limitations of this study and further develop Communicative NGOMSL is discussed.