Efficiency Assessment of An E-Commerce Data Management Tool Using Learning Curves

Learning curves for e-commerce data management tasks were computed to assess UI efficiency. Participants were asked to update product information using an e-commerce data management tool. Mean time on task over 20 trials of the same task was fit using a power function. Learning curves of 92.7% to 97.6% were found for two product update tasks. The results obtained indicate that making efficiency judgments based on the first few trials will produce higher learning coefficients that actually exist, and suggest that practitioners should not assume that time on task will always decrease significantly with increased practice. It also shows how properties of learning curves can help in the analysis of UI efficiency.