Abstract

In today's world, knowledge-based systems are widely used for both large and small tasks. Acquiring knowledge from domain experts is one of the major bottlenecks in building such systems, and hence, Knowledge Acquisition (KA) tools are given importance. The goal of these tools was to assist the knowledge engineer in eliciting knowledge from domain experts. Until recently, the usage of these tools was limited to people with significant computer expertise. User interface difficulties form one source that prevents people at large from receiving the expected benefits of KA tools. This has prompted the investigation of the usability of two popular knowledge acquisition tools in this thesis. This thesis focuses on designing and conducting a usability test with two popular KA tools: Protégé2000 and PCPACK4. The purpose of this study is to assess the usability of these two KA tools against a set of criteria, and to provide recommendations for further improvement of these tools or to help in the development of new KA tools. To conduct this usability test, this thesis adopted and modified Hix's methodology for the evaluation of knowledge-acquisition tools. Testing with a small set of end-users revealed several usability issues. Based on these observations recommendations are made in this thesis for further enhancement of usage of KA tools