A Study on the Relationship between Usability of GUIs and Power Consumption of a PC: The Case of PHRs

José A. García-Berná, Sofia Ouhbi, José L. Fernández-Alemán, Juan M. Carrillo de Gea, Joaquín Nicolás, Begoña Moros and Ambrosio Toval
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José A. García-Berná: Department of Computer Science and Systems, University of Murcia, 30100 Murcia, Spain
Sofia Ouhbi: Department of Computer Science and Software Engineering, UAE University, Al Ain 15551, United Arab Emirates
José L. Fernández-Alemán: Department of Computer Science and Systems, University of Murcia, 30100 Murcia, Spain
Juan M. Carrillo de Gea: Department of Computer Science and Systems, University of Murcia, 30100 Murcia, Spain
Joaquín Nicolás: Department of Computer Science and Systems, University of Murcia, 30100 Murcia, Spain
Begoña Moros: Department of Computer Science and Systems, University of Murcia, 30100 Murcia, Spain
Ambrosio Toval: Department of Computer Science and Systems, University of Murcia, 30100 Murcia, Spain

IJERPH, 2021, vol. 18, issue 4, 1-23

Abstract: Usability is key to achieve quality in software products. The client applications with a high score in usability might impact on the power consumption when they are run in a PC. For this reason, energy savings turn to be critical in green software systems. In this paper the relationship between the usability evaluations of the GUIs and the power consumption measurements of the main components of a PC were analysed. A set of 5 web-based personal health records (PHRs) were selected as a case study. The usability assessment was performed by an expert, employing the 14 principles of design by Alan Dix as heuristics. They were scored on a Likert scale after performing a collection of common tasks in the PHRs. At the same time, an equipment to measure the energy consumption of hard disk drive, graphics card, processor, monitor and power supply was used. Spearman’s index was studied for the correlations between the usability assessments and the power consumption measurements. As a results, some weak relationships were found. A total of 5 usability heuristics were observed to may influence energy consumption when they were considered in the implementation of the PHRs. These heuristics were the following ones: consistency, task migratability, observability, recoverability and responsiveness. Based on the results, the usability principles of design cannot always be related to lower energy consumption. Future research should focus on the tradeoffs between usability and power consumption of client applications when they are used in a computer.

Keywords: personal health records; energy efficiency; usability; environmental sustainability (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
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