54,211 research outputs found
Good Usability Practices in Scientific Software Development
Scientific software often presents very particular requirements regarding usability, which is often completely overlooked in this setting. As computational science has emerged as its own discipline, distinct from theoretical and experimental science, it has put new requirements on future scientific software developments. In this paper, we discuss the background of these problems and introduce nine aspects of good usability. We also highlight best practices for each aspect with an emphasis on applications in computational science
Report of the user requirements and web based access for eResearch workshops
The User Requirements and Web Based Access for eResearch Workshop, organized jointly by NeSC and NCeSS, was held on 19 May 2006. The aim was to identify lessons learned from e-Science projects that would contribute to our capacity to make Grid infrastructures and tools usable and accessible for diverse user communities. Its focus was on providing an opportunity for a pragmatic discussion between e-Science end users
and tool builders in order to understand usability challenges, technological options, community-specific content and needs, and methodologies for design and development. We invited members of six UK e-Science projects and one US project, trying as far as
possible to pair a user and developer from each project in order to discuss their contrasting perspectives and experiences. Three breakout group sessions covered the
topics of user-developer relations, commodification, and functionality. There was also extensive post-meeting discussion, summarized here.
Additional information on the workshop, including the agenda, participant list, and talk slides, can be found online at http://www.nesc.ac.uk/esi/events/685/
Reference: NeSC report UKeS-2006-07 available from http://www.nesc.ac.uk/technical_papers/UKeS-2006-07.pd
The ABCD of usability testing
We introduce a methodology for tracking and auditing feedback, errors and suggestions for software packages. This short paper describes how we innovate on the evaluation mechanism, introducing an (Antecedent, Barrier, Consequence and Development) ABCD form, embedded within an eParticipation platform to enable end users to easily report on any usability issues. This methodology will be utilised to improve the STEP cloud eParticipation platform (part of the current STEP Horizon2020 project http://step4youth.eu. The platform is currently being piloted in real life contexts, with the participation of public authorities that are integrating the eParticipation platform into their regular decision-making practices. The project is involving young people, through engagement and motivation strategies and giving them a voice in Environmental decision making at the local level. The pilot evaluation aims to demonstrate how open engagement needs to be embedded within public sector processes and the usability methodology reported here will help to identify the key barriers for wide scale deployment of the platform
Enterprise Experience into the Integration of Human-Centered Design and Kanban
he integration of Human-Centered Design (HCD) and Agile Software Development (ASD) promises the
development of competitive products comprising a good User Experience (UX). This study has investigated
the integration of HCD and Kanban with the aim to gain industrial experiences in a real world context. A
case study showed that requirements flow into the development process in a structured manner by adding a
design board. To this end, the transparency concerning recurring requirements increased. We contribute to
the body of knowledge of software development by providing practical insights into Human-Centered Agile
Development (HCAD). On one hand, it is shown that the integration of HCD and Kanban leads to a product
with a good UX and makes the development process more human-centered. On the other hand, we conclude
that a cross-functional collaboration speeds up product development.Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad TIN2013-46928-C3-3-RMinisterio de Economía y Competitividad TIN2015-71938-RED
Report on the Third Workshop on Sustainable Software for Science: Practice and Experiences (WSSSPE3)
This report records and discusses the Third Workshop on Sustainable Software
for Science: Practice and Experiences (WSSSPE3). The report includes a
description of the keynote presentation of the workshop, which served as an
overview of sustainable scientific software. It also summarizes a set of
lightning talks in which speakers highlighted to-the-point lessons and
challenges pertaining to sustaining scientific software. The final and main
contribution of the report is a summary of the discussions, future steps, and
future organization for a set of self-organized working groups on topics
including developing pathways to funding scientific software; constructing
useful common metrics for crediting software stakeholders; identifying
principles for sustainable software engineering design; reaching out to
research software organizations around the world; and building communities for
software sustainability. For each group, we include a point of contact and a
landing page that can be used by those who want to join that group's future
activities. The main challenge left by the workshop is to see if the groups
will execute these activities that they have scheduled, and how the WSSSPE
community can encourage this to happen
Why Do Developers Get Password Storage Wrong? A Qualitative Usability Study
Passwords are still a mainstay of various security systems, as well as the
cause of many usability issues. For end-users, many of these issues have been
studied extensively, highlighting problems and informing design decisions for
better policies and motivating research into alternatives. However, end-users
are not the only ones who have usability problems with passwords! Developers
who are tasked with writing the code by which passwords are stored must do so
securely. Yet history has shown that this complex task often fails due to human
error with catastrophic results. While an end-user who selects a bad password
can have dire consequences, the consequences of a developer who forgets to hash
and salt a password database can lead to far larger problems. In this paper we
present a first qualitative usability study with 20 computer science students
to discover how developers deal with password storage and to inform research
into aiding developers in the creation of secure password systems
User-driven design of decision support systems for polycentric environmental resources management
Open and decentralized technologies such as the Internet provide increasing opportunities to create knowledge and deliver computer-based decision support for multiple types of users across scales. However, environmental decision support systems/tools (henceforth EDSS) are often strongly science-driven and assuming single types of decision makers, and hence poorly suited for more decentralized and polycentric decision making contexts. In such contexts, EDSS need to be tailored to meet diverse user requirements to ensure that it provides useful (relevant), usable (intuitive), and exchangeable (institutionally unobstructed) information for decision support for different types of actors. To address these issues, we present a participatory framework for designing EDSS that emphasizes a more complete understanding of the decision making structures and iterative design of the user interface. We illustrate the application of the framework through a case study within the context of water-stressed upstream/downstream communities in Lima, Peru
Summary of the First Workshop on Sustainable Software for Science: Practice and Experiences (WSSSPE1)
Challenges related to development, deployment, and maintenance of reusable software for science are becoming a growing concern. Many scientists’ research increasingly depends on the quality and availability of software upon which their works are built. To highlight some of these issues and share experiences, the First Workshop on Sustainable Software for Science: Practice and Experiences (WSSSPE1) was held in November 2013 in conjunction with the SC13 Conference. The workshop featured keynote presentations and a large number (54) of solicited extended abstracts that were grouped into three themes and presented via panels. A set of collaborative notes of the presentations and discussion was taken during the workshop.
Unique perspectives were captured about issues such as comprehensive documentation, development and deployment practices, software licenses and career paths for developers. Attribution systems that account for evidence of software contribution and impact were also discussed. These include mechanisms such as Digital Object Identifiers, publication of “software papers”, and the use of online systems, for example source code repositories like GitHub. This paper summarizes the issues and shared experiences that were discussed, including cross-cutting issues and use cases. It joins a nascent literature seeking to understand what drives software work in science, and how it is impacted by the reward systems of science. These incentives can determine the extent to which developers are motivated to build software for the long-term, for the use of others, and whether to work collaboratively or separately. It also explores community building, leadership, and dynamics in relation to successful scientific software
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