Revealing the Vicious Circle of Disengaged User Acceptance: A SaaS Provider's Perspective

User acceptance tests (UAT) are an integral part of many different software engineering methodologies. In this paper, we examine the influence of UATs on the relationship between users and Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) applications, which are continuously delivered rather than rolled out during a one-off signoff process. Based on an exploratory qualitative field study at a multinational SaaS provider in Denmark, we show that UATs often address the wrong problem in that positive user acceptance may actually indicate a negative user experience. Hence, SaaS providers should be careful not to rest on what we term disengaged user acceptance. Instead, we outline an approach that purposefully queries users for ambivalent emotions that evoke constructive criticism, in order to facilitate a discourse that favors the continuous innovation of a SaaS system. We discuss theoretical and practical implications of our approach for the study of user engagement in testing SaaS applications

Validation of the Parlay API through prototyping

The desire within the telecommunications world for new and faster business growth has been a major drive towards the development of open network API. Over the past 7 years several (semi) standardization groups have announced work on network API, including TINA-C, JAIN, IEEE P1520, INforum, 3GPP, JAIN, Parlay. The Parlay group seems most successful in attracting industry awareness with their API, called the Parlay API. The rational behind the Parlay API is that it attracts innovation from third parties that are outside the network operator's domain to build and deploy new network-hosted applications. This also means that the public telecommunication network is opened for niche and short-lived applications as well as for applications that possibly integrate telephones with other terminals such as PC. The Parlay group has successfully passed the first two phases of success, namely publishing their API on the right moment in time and attracting a critical mass within the telecommunication industry with their results. Prototyping the API on a real network execution platform is the only way to show its technical feasibility. Such an exercise was executed internally within Lucent Technologies and raised a number of questions as well as recommendations on both the technical and the semantical behavior for systems that will be interconnected via the Parlay API. We share these results, showing the drawbacks and advantages as well as challenges for this AP

Interactive tag maps and tag clouds for the multiscale exploration of large spatio-temporal datasets

'Tag clouds' and 'tag maps' are introduced to represent geographically referenced text. In combination, these aspatial and spatial views are used to explore a large structured spatio-temporal data set by providing overviews and filtering by text and geography. Prototypes are implemented using freely available technologies including Google Earth and Yahoo! 's Tag Map applet. The interactive tag map and tag cloud techniques and the rapid prototyping method used are informally evaluated through successes and limitations encountered. Preliminary evaluation suggests that the techniques may be useful for generating insights when visualizing large data sets containing geo-referenced text strings. The rapid prototyping approach enabled the technique to be developed and evaluated, leading to geovisualization through which a number of ideas were generated. Limitations of this approach are reflected upon. Tag placement, generalisation and prominence at different scales are issues which have come to light in this study that warrant further work

Science Pipelines for the Square Kilometre Array

The Square Kilometre Array (SKA) will be both the largest radio telescope ever constructed and the largest Big Data project in the known Universe. The first phase of the project will generate on the order of 5 zettabytes of data per year. A critical task for the SKA will be its ability to process data for science, which will need to be conducted by science pipelines. Together with polarization data from the LOFAR Multifrequency Snapshot Sky Survey (MSSS), we have been developing a realistic SKA-like science pipeline that can handle the large data volumes generated by LOFAR at 150 MHz. The pipeline uses task-based parallelism to image, detect sources, and perform Faraday Tomography across the entire LOFAR sky. The project thereby provides a unique opportunity to contribute to the technological development of the SKA telescope, while simultaneously enabling cutting-edge scientific results. In this paper, we provide an update on current efforts to develop a science pipeline that can enable tight constraints on the magnetised large-scale structure of the Universe.Comment: Published in Galaxies, as part of a Special Issue on The Power of Faraday Tomograph

Using Links to prototype a Database Wiki

Both relational databases and wikis have strengths that make them attractive for use in collaborative applications. In the last decade, database-backed Web applications have been used extensively to develop valuable shared biological references called curated databases. Databases offer many advantages such as scalability, query optimization and concurrency control, but are not easy to use and lack other features needed for collaboration. Wikis have become very popular for early-stage biocuration projects because they are easy to use, encourage sharing and collaboration, and provide built-in support for archiving, history-tracking and annotation. However, curation projects often outgrow the limited capabilities of wikis for structuring and efficiently querying data at scale, necessitating a painful phase transition to a database-backed Web application. We perceive a need for a new class of general-purpose system, which we call a Database Wiki, that combines flexible wiki-like support for collaboration with robust database-like capabilities for structuring and querying data. This paper presents DBWiki, a design prototype for such a system written in the Web programming language Links. We present the architecture, typical use, and wiki markup language design for DBWiki and discuss features of Links that provided unique advantages for rapid Web/database application prototyping

Animating user interface prototypes with formal models

Dissertação de mestrado integrado em Informatics EngineeringThe User Interface (UI) provides the first impression of an interactive system and should, thus, be intuitive, in order to guide users effectively and efficiently in performing their tasks. User interface prototyping is a common activity in UI development, as it supports early exploration of the UI design by potential users. UI quality plays a crucial role in safety-critical contexts, where design errors can poten tially lead to catastrophic events. Model-based analysis approaches aim to detect usability and performance issues early in the design process by leveraging formal analysis. They complement prototyping, which supports user involvement, but not an exhaustive analysis of the designs. The IVY Workbench emerges as a model-based analysis tool intended for non-expert usage. The tool was originally focused on supporting modelling and verification, but more recently an effort began to combine the formal model capabilities with UI mock-ups, to produce more interactive prototypes than traditional mock-up editors support. This work addresses the enhancement of the prototyping features of the IVY Workbench. The improvements of such features include the creation of a dynamic widget library that can vastly improve the quality of prototypes. Such a library, however, should be compatible with several mock-up editors to attract a broader design community. The results of this work include an analysis of alternative prototyping tools, identifying potential features that can enhance the IVY Workbench, the creation of a dynamic widget library that is compatible with several mock-up editors, and several improvements to IVY’s prototyping plugin, including the addition of code exporting functionalities. Usability tests were conducted to validate the new features of the tool, with positive results. Two mobile applications were also created, allowing users to test prototypes in their mobile devices.A UI proporciona o primeiro contacto entre um utilizador e um sistema interativo. Assim, a UI deverá ser capaz de guiar o utilizador na execução das suas tarefas, de um modo eficiente e eficaz. A prototipagem de interfaces é uma atividade comum no processo de desenvolvimento de UIs, já que permite a exploração antecipada do design de uma UI com potenciais utilizadores. A UI tem um papel bastante relevante no contexto de sistemas críticos, onde falhas no design podem gerar eventos catastróficos. As metodologias de análise baseadas em modelos procuram detetar potenciais falhas de usabilidade e desempenho, em fases iniciais do processo de desenvolvimento, através de análise formal. Estas metodologias complementam o processo de prototipagem, que suporta o envolvimento dos utilizadores mas não oferece uma análise exaustiva do design. A IVY Workbench surge como uma ferramenta de análise baseada em modelos que visa suportar utilizadores sem grandes conhecimentos de análise formal. Embora originalmente focada na modelação e verificação, surgiu recentemente um esforço para combinar as capacidades da análise formal com mock-ups da UI. O objetivo é produzir protótipos com maior nível de interação do que os produzidos pelos tradicionais editores de mock-ups. O presente trabalho apresenta melhorias das capacidades de prototipagem da ferramenta IVY Workbench. Estas melhorias incluem a criação de uma biblioteca de widgets dinâmicos, que aperfeiçoa a qualidade dos protótipos desta ferramenta. Esta biblioteca deverá ser compatível com múltiplos editores de mock-ups, de modo a atrair uma vasta comunidade de designers. Os resultados deste trabalho incluem uma análise de alternativas de ferramentas de prototipagem, onde são identificadas funcionalidades que podem aprimorar a ferramenta IVY Workbench; a criação de uma biblioteca de widgets dinâmicos, compatível com inúmeros editores de mock-ups; assim como várias melhorias efetuadas no plugin de prototipagem desta ferramenta, incluindo a adição de funcionalidades de exportação de código fonte. Foram realizados testes de usabilidade para validar as novas funcionalidades da ferramenta com utilizadores, onde foram obtidos resultados positivos. Finalmente, foram criadas duas aplicações móveis que permitem que os utilizadores testem os protótipos nos seus dispositivos móveis

The transaction pattern through automating TrAM

Transaction Agent Modelling (TrAM) has demonstrated how the early requirements of complex enterprise systems can be captured and described in a lucid yet rigorous way. Using Geerts and McCarthy’s REA (Resource-Events-Agents) model as its basis, the TrAM process manages to capture the ‘qualitative’ dimensions of business transactions and business processes. A key part of the process is automated model-checking, which CG has revealed to be beneficial in this regard. It enables models to retain the high-level business concepts yet providing a formal structure at that high-level that is lacking in Use Cases. Using a conceptual catalogue informed by transactions, we illustrate the automation of a transaction pattern from which further specialisations impart a tested specification for system implementation, which we envisage as a multi-agent system in order to reflect the dynamic world of business activity. It would furthermore be able to interoperate across business domains as they would share the generalised TM as a pattern.</p