User Expertise in Multimodal HCI

Previous experience with the same or similar computer systems can affect the behavior and preferences of a user in multimodal human-computer interaction (HCI). Consequently, adaptive systems need to identify and react to different kinds of previous user experiences. In this paper we examine possible effects of the user expertise on a user's choice of modality, performance, and the temporal parameters of the interaction. Results show that increasing user expertise elevates the use of multimodal interaction modalities in general and the use of the familiar multimodal modality in particular. Increasing unimodal expertise, however, does not. Our results further show, that the level of user expertise can affect the performance of the user. Based on our findings, this can be deducted from temporal factors of the interaction, such as the temporal gap between two subsequent inputs.