Replication vs. Modification: Comparing the Usability of Crane GUIs Designed by Reusing a Design System

Design systems offer reusable user interface (UI) elements that other designers can use to reduce design effort and improve consistency across different products. However, it remains unclear whether simply reusing these UI elements is sufficient to ensure usability. This paper presents a case study that compared one graphical user interface (GUI) created by directly reusing UI elements from a design system with another GUI that had been modified by considering established design principles. We involved eight crane operators to evaluate both GUIs based on the three dimensions of usability: effectiveness, efficiency, and satisfaction. The results showed that both GUIs produced 100% task success rate, which suggests that both GUIs had equal effectiveness. The results showed that neither of the GUIs constantly produced shorter time to complete the given tasks, hence indicating that neither GUIs produced better outcomes with respect to efficiency. However, the results showed that the modified GUI had a much higher Net Promoter Score than the unmodified GUI. This finding suggests that the participants had much higher satisfaction when using the modified GUI than the unmodified one. This case study reports that, while reusing UI elements from a design system without any modifications may provide a good foundation for effective and efficient GUIs, modifications are still needed if designers want to enhance users' satisfaction.