Understanding User Engagement With Multi-Representational License Comprehension Interfaces

Abstract

License information for any non-trivial open-source software demonstrates the growing complexity of compliance management. Studies have shown that understanding open-source licenses is difficult. Prior research has not examined how developers would use interfaces displaying license text and its graphical models in studying a license. Consequently, a repeatable eye tracking-based methodology was developed to study user engagement when exploring open-source rights and obligations in a multi-modal fashion. Experiences of 10 participants in an exploratory case study design indicate that eye-tracking is feasible to quantitatively and qualitatively observe distinct interaction patterns in the use of license comprehension interfaces. A low correlation was observed between self-reported usability survey data and eye-tracking data. Conversely, a high correlation between eye-tracker and mouse data suggests the use of either in future studies. This paper provides a framework to conduct such studies as an alternative to surveys while offering interesting hypotheses for future studies.