Designing a GUI for Proofs - Evaluation of an HCI Experiment

TL;DR

This paper reports an HCI experiment with non-expert students to gather design insights for a user-friendly GUI for mathematical proof systems, aiming to improve accessibility for non-expert users.

Contribution

It introduces an empirical study involving non-expert users to inform GUI design for proof systems, addressing usability gaps for non-specialists.

Findings

Insights into non-expert user needs for proof GUIs

Design suggestions for more accessible proof interfaces

Evaluation results guiding GUI improvements

Abstract

Often user interfaces of theorem proving systems focus on assisting particularly trained and skilled users, i.e., proof experts. As a result, the systems are difficult to use for non-expert users. This paper describes a paper and pencil HCI experiment, in which (non-expert) students were asked to make suggestions for a GUI for an interactive system for mathematical proofs. They had to explain the usage of the GUI by applying it to construct a proof sketch for a given theorem. The evaluation of the experiment provides insights for the interaction design for non-expert users and the needs and wants of this user group.