# Evaluation of Formal IDEs for Human-Machine Interface Design and Analysis: The Case of CIRCUS and PVSio-web

## TL;DR

This paper compares two advanced formal IDEs, CIRCUS and PVSio-web, for designing and analyzing critical human-machine interfaces to enhance safety and reduce use errors in safety-critical systems.

## Contribution

It provides a systematic evaluation of CIRCUS and PVSio-web, highlighting their strengths and limitations in the context of human-machine interface development.

## Key findings

- CIRCUS effectively models complex interface behaviors.
- PVSio-web offers rigorous formal verification capabilities.
- Both tools improve safety analysis in critical systems.

## Abstract

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.