UI error reduction for high spatial visualization users when using adaptive software to verify addresses

An adaptive software system is known as an application that can adapt itself based on different conditions of users. There are multiple conditions/criteria that can be used to direct how an application would adapt. Spatial visualization (VZ) is one of several human spatial abilities that is used to predict human's performance when using a computer application. Therefore, a difference in VZ level is a suitable choice as an adapting indicator, i.e., high VZ and low VZ users should get different features on a user interface (UI) to complete the same task. In this paper, we look at three studies where we asked participants to verify a set of housing addresses using a location-based application on an Android tablet with different versions of the application, especially, an adaptive version of the application was involved in the last study. We found that, for high VZ participants, the number of UI errors that participants created was significantly smaller when they were equipped with the adaptive software. We refer to a UI error (User Interface Error) as an error where a user tapped on a non-sensitive region of the screen. The results of the three studies and hypothesis tests for significance are reported.