  As the popularity of Smart Televisions (TVs) and interactive Smart TV
applications (apps) has recently grown, the usability of these apps has become
an important quality characteristic. Previous studies examined Smart TV apps
from a usability perspective. However, these methods are mainly manual, and the
potential of automated model-based testing methods for usability testing
purposes has not yet been fully explored. In this paper, we propose an approach
to test the usability of Smart TV apps based on the automated generation of a
Smart TV user interaction model from an existing app by a specialized automated
crawler. By means of this model, defined user tasks in the Smart TV app can be
evaluated automatically in terms of their feasibility and estimated user
effort, which reflects the usability of the analyzed app. This analysis can be
applied in the context of regular users and users with various specific needs.
The findings from this model-based automated analysis approach can be used to
optimize the user interface of a Smart TV app to increase its usability,
accessibility, and quality.
