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This paper deals with the constant problem of establishing a usable and reliable evolutionary algorithm (EA) characterization procedure so that final users like engineers, mathematicians or physicists can have more specific information to choose the most suitable EA for a given problem. The practical goal behind this work is to provide insights into relevant features of fitness landscapes and their relationship to the performance of different algorithms. This should help users to minimize the typical initial stage in which they apply a well-known EA, or a modified version of it, to the functions they want to optimize without really taking into account its suitability to the particular features of the problem. This trial and error procedure is usually due to a lack of objective and detailed characterizations of the algorithms in the literature in terms of the types of functions or landscape characteristics they are well suited to handle and …