Investigating the User Experience of Mind Map Software: A Comparative Study based on Eye Tracking

Software for creating mind maps is currently prevalent, and it should have strong usability and create a good user experience. Usability testing can help to uncover flaws in software's usability and support its optimization. This paper took the mind map software "Xmind" and "MindMaster" as study cases and conducted comparative research on three aspects: effectiveness, efficiency, and satisfaction. The research investigated 20 participants' interactions with the two software. Task completion rate, number of errors, and number of requests for help were collected to evaluate the effectiveness. Eye tracking data and task completion time are collected to evaluate efficiency. System usability, interface quality, and emotional dimensions were collected with subjective scales to assess the software’s user satisfaction. The data together led to a conclusion: each software has a few usability issues. The use of jargon to explain functions was costly to learn and quickly undermined users' confidence in using the software; the interface's simplicity impacted satisfaction, although users tended to evaluate utility tools in terms of their ease of use and ease of learning. These findings could be used to optimize utility software.

@article{Wang2022,
  title     = {Investigating the User Experience of Mind Map Software: A Comparative Study based on Eye Tracking},
  journal   = {International Journal of Advanced Computer Science and Applications},
  volume    = {13},
  number    = {11},
  year      = {2022},
  publisher = {The Science and Information Organization},
  author    = {Junfeng Wang and Xi Wang and Jingjing Lu and Zhiyu Xu},
  doi       = {10.14569/IJACSA.2022.0131101},
  url       = {https://doi.org/10.14569/IJACSA.2022.0131101}
}