Usability evaluation of multi-modal biometric verification systems Doroteo T. Toledano a, * , Rube ´n Ferna ´ndez Pozo b , A ´ lvaro Herna ´ndez Trapote b , Luis Herna ´ndez Go ´mez b a ATVS, Escuela Polite ´ cnica Superior, Universidad Auto ´ noma de Madrid, Ciudad Universitaria de Cantoblanco, 28049 Madrid, Spain b Grupo de Aplicaciones de Procesado de Sen ˜al, Departamento de Sen ˜ales, Sistemas y Radiocomunicaciones, Universidad Polite ´ cnica de Madrid, Ciudad Universitaria s/n, 28040 Madrid, Spain Received 7 October 2004; received in revised form 21 November 2005; accepted 14 January 2006 Available online 20 March 2006 Abstract As a result of the evolution in the field of biometrics, a new breed of techniques and meth- ods for user identity recognition and verification has appeared based on the recognition and verification of several biometric features considered unique to each individual. Signature and voice characteristics, facial features, and iris and fingerprint patterns have all been used to identify a person or just to verify that the person is who he/she claims to be. Although still relatively new, these new technologies have already reached a level of development that allows its commercialization. However, there is a lack of studies devoted to the evaluation of these technologies from a user-centered perspective. This paper is intended to promote user-centered design and evaluation of biometric technologies. Towards this end, we have developed a plat- form to perform empirical evaluations of commercial biometric identity verification systems, including fingerprint, voice and signature verification. In this article, we present an initial empirical study in which we evaluate, compare and try to get insights into the factors that are crucial for the usability of these systems. Ó 2006 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. 0953-5438/$ - see front matter Ó 2006 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.intcom.2006.01.004 * Corresponding author. Tel.: + 34 91 497 2217; fax: + 34 91 497 2235. E-mail addresses: doroteo.torre@uam.es (D.T. Toledano), ruben@gaps.ssr.upm.es (R. Ferna ´ndez Pozo), alvaro.trapote@gmail.com (A ´ . Herna ´ndez Trapote), luis@gaps.ssr.upm.es (L. Herna ´ndez Go ´ mez). www.elsevier.com/locate/intcom Interacting with Computers 18 (2006) 1101–1122