How usability is seen by software development organizations and their end-users?

Abstract. Software usability is usually the main thing a user thinks of along with functionality. For user it is important that they can use a software with ease to do their tasks. They pay attention to how it feels to use a software. For software developers, usability can be more complex topic that needs attention. Developer organizations need to focus on usability in order to make a product usable and manage to achieve that goal. This paper discusses about usability, its benefits and measure opinions between developing organizations and end-users. Thesis is based around usability literature and two questionnaires, one for developing organizations and other for end-users. There were 22 developers and 14 end-users answering to the questionnaires

Applying usability cost-benefit analysis — explorations in commercial and open source software development contexts

Abstract This thesis explores whether usability cost-benefit analysis is helpful when applied to commercial and open source software (OSS) development contexts. First, the thesis examines the differences and commonalities among the existing usability cost-benefit analysis models. The results indicate that there are considerable variations in the usability cost-benefit analysis literature in how the different categories of usability costs and benefits are identified and documented. Second, the thesis examines how well the existing usability cost-benefit considerations fit into practice in closed source software development. The results indicate that there are considerable risks of failure when using usability cost-benefit considerations in the commercial development context, when the inherent costs of usability activities become apparent, concrete, and measurable. Conversely, the potential benefits of better usability remain vague, uncertain, and unconvincing to the management. In order to build better usability cost-benefit models and minimize the potential that the models have unforeseen inherent risks, as outlined in this thesis, researchers should focus strongly on bringing forward the possible benefits of usability instead of focusing on the costs of designing and implementing user interfaces that would be realized in any case, regardless of the usability activities. Third, the thesis identifies the parallels and differences between open source software development and closed source software development in order to identify how usability costs and benefits fit into OSS development. The usability costs and benefits specific to OSS development are reflected in the experiences of bringing usability into the OSS development context. The results indicate that it is possible to fit usability cost-benefit considerations into the OSS development context, even though there are no apparent financial or resource factors to be considered. Furthermore, to fit usability cost-benefit considerations into the OSS development context, the philosophy, principles, hierarchical structure, community structure, and characteristics of OSS development must be considered. Usability cost-benefit considerations that fit into the OSS development context might help convince core developers that usability activities are important and should be integrated into the project roadmap.Tiivistelmä Väitöskirjassa tutkitaan käytettävyyden kustannus-hyöty -analyysin soveltamista kaupalliseen ja avoimen lähdekoodin ohjelmistojen (OSS) ohjelmistokehitykseen. Tutkimuksessa tarkastellaan ensin käytettävyyden kustannus-hyöty -analyysimallien eroja ja yhteisiä piirteitä. Tulokset osoittavat käytettävyyden kustannus-hyöty -analyysimalleissa olevan huomattavia eroja siinä, miten eri käytettävyyden kustannuksia ja hyötyjä on tunnistettu. Toiseksi tutkimuksessa tarkastellaan miten hyvin nykyiset käytettävyyden kustannus-hyöty -analyysimallit sopivat käytännössä kaupallisten ohjelmistojen kehittämisessä. Tulokset osoittavat, että on olemassa huomattavia epäonnistumisen riskejä käytettäessä käytettävyyden kustannus-hyötynäkökohtia käytettävyystoimien oikeuttamiseen. Käytettävyyden kustannukset voivat tulla yrityksen johdon näkökulmasta konkreettisiksi ja mitattaviksi, kun taas mahdolliset paremman käytettävyyden hyödyt voivat jäädä epämääräisiksi, epävarmoiksi ja epäuskottaviksi. Parempien käytettävyyden kustannus-hyöty –mallien kehittämiseksi ja odottamattomien riskien minimoimiseksi mallien suunnittelussa tulisi keskittyä erityisesti paremman käytettävyyden tuomiin mahdollisiin etuihin, koska osa kustannuksista toteutuisi joka tapauksessa käytettävyystoimista riippumatta. Kolmanneksi tutkimuksessa tarkastellaan eroja ja yhtäläisyyksiä avoimen lähdekoodin ohjelmistojen kehittämisessä ja kaupallisessa suljetun lähdekoodin ohjelmistojen kehittämisessä, sekä miten käytettävyyden kustannukset ja hyödyt soveltuvat OSS kehityksessä käytettävyystoimien oikeuttamiseen. Käytettävyyden kustannuksia ja hyötyjä OSS -kehityksessä heijastetaan suhteessa kokemuksiin käytettävyystoimista OSS -projekteissa. Tulokset osoittavat, että on mahdollista soveltaa käytettävyyden kustannus-hyöty -näkökulmia OSS kehityksessä, vaikka OSS kehityksessä ei olekaan ilmeisiä huomioitavia taloudellisia tai resurssitekijöitä. Käytettävyyden kustannus-hyöty -näkökulmien soveltaminen OSS kehityksessä edellyttää OSS kehityksen filosofian, periaatteiden, hierarkkisen rakenteen, yhteisön rakenteen sekä OSS kehityksen ominaispiirteiden ottamista huomioon. OSS -kehitykseen paremmin soveltuvien käytettävyyden kustannus-hyöty –näkökulmien avulla voidaan vakuuttaa OSS -projektin pääkehittäjiä ja yhteisöä käytettävyystoimien tärkeydestä ja nämä toimet voidaan saada osaksi projektin ohjelmistokehitystä

Early phase of user involvement to validate the minimum viable product:an approach of Lean UX

Abstract. Early product design and development in startup is filled with various challenges due to lack of resources, product idea, finding the targets markets, and so on. Scientific literature did not concentrate on those challenges during the development of the minimum viable product (MVP) in startups. The aim of this research was to create an MVP to collect user feedback to validate the initial product idea and discover the challenges and benefits when collecting user feedback. A case of FOOODO (web-based food selling application) was considerated as startup situation to validate the idea by collecting unbiased user feedback. The result of the study presented the way of collecting feedback from potential users to validate the first version of the product in start-ups context towards the MVP. To conduct the research a qualitative semi structured interview, observation and design science research (DSR) was used. The findings of the study presented the way of creating MVP through Lean UX process and various challenges factors subjected to MVP, future product concept, usability of MVP, right user selection and environment settings. The result of the study suggested that most of the potential user are not able to understand the future product concept until they see something visually, whereas MVP plays an important role for collecting user feedback during the development of the first version of the product. The research will contribute to the user experience (UX) practitioner’s community to understand the challenges by various factors that start-ups face during user feedback and MVP experimentation session and discover the benefits of collecting feedback with a minimum version of the product

Experimental user interface design toolkit for interaction research (IDTR).

The research reported and discussed in this thesis represents a novel approach to User Interface evaluation and optimisation through cognitive modelling. This is achieved through the development and testing of a toolkit or platform titled Toolkit for Optimisation of Interface System Evolution (TOISE). The research is conducted in two main phases. In phase 1, the Adaptive Control of Thought Rational (ACT-R) cognitive architecture is used to design Simulated Users (SU) models. This allows models of user interaction to be tested on a specific User Interface (UI). In phase 2, an evolutionary algorithm is added and used to evolve and test an optimised solution to User Interface layout based on the original interface design. The thesis presents a technical background, followed by an overview of some applications in their respective fields. The core concepts behind TOISE are introduced through a discussion of the Adaptive Control of Thought “ Rational (ACT-R) architecture with a focus on the ACT-R models that are used to simulate users. The notion of adding a Genetic Algorithm optimiser is introduced and discussed in terms of the feasibility of using simulated users as the basis for automated evaluation to optimise usability. The design and implementation of TOISE is presented and discussed followed by a series of experiments that evaluate the TOISE system. While the research had to address and solve a large number of technical problems the resulting system does demonstrate potential as a platform for automated evaluation and optimisation of user interface layouts. The limitations of the system and the approach are discussed and further work is presented. It is concluded that the research is novel and shows considerable promise in terms of feasibility and potential for optimising layout for enhanced usability