International Journal of
Innovation, Management and Technology

Abstract

The paper suggests the development of a knowledge-based system (KBS) to support web interface design via organizing somehow dispersed HCI-related knowledge and providing it on a context basis. The frame-based ontology was created with Protégé-Frames editor and CLIPS inference engine to serve as the core for the KBS, producing web design guidelines per business goals of a web-development(e-commerce) project and its target user group. The more theoretical knowledge, such as HCI laws and principles, was also embraced, and tag-based classification was used in the ontology to relate the guidelines to the design context, thus enhancing the explanatory component of the KBS. The results of the experimental testing suggest that the website developed with KBS’s support compares favorably with existing analogues from e-commerce industry, attaining task success rate of 85.9%and receiving mildly positive user subjective impression ratings. The proposed KBS may be used not only as an expert system or in training inexperienced IT specialists, but also by skilled web and interface designers to improve the quality of their work by more wholly considering the attributes and requirements of a target user group.