Usability engineering for GIS: learning from a screenshot

In this paper, the focus is on the concept of Usability Engineering for GIS – a set of techniques and methods that are especially suitable for evaluating the usability of GIS applications – which can be deployed as part of the development process. To demonstrate how the framework of Usability Engineering for GIS can be used in reality, a screenshot study is described. Users were asked to provide a screenshot of their GIS during their working day. The study shows how a simple technique can help in understanding the way GIS is used in situ

Usability Engineering and PPGIS - Towards a Learning-improving Cycle

July 21 - 2

Usability-Metriken als Nachweis der Wirtschaftlichkeit von Verbesserungen der Mensch-Maschine-Schnittstelle

Die Gestaltung von Benutzerschnittstellen ist ausschlaggebend für die Akzeptanz eines Software-Systems. Methoden des Usability Engineering zielen auf die Entwicklung von Systemen mit möglichst hoher ergonomischer Güte sowie aufgabengerechter Funktionalität. Usability-Metriken werden im Projekt-Controlling dazu benutzt, um zu bewerten, inwieweit die Anwendung von Methoden des Usability Engineering in existierenden Entwicklungsprozessen zu einer verbesserten Bedieneffizienz und Nutzerakzeptanz führt. Der wirtschaftliche Fokus liegt - sofern solche Aspekte überhaupt in die Motivation zur Erhebung von Usability-Metriken einfließen - oftmals nur auf einem einzigen, monetär erfassbaren Faktor, wie zum Beispiel dem Return on Investment (RoI). Dagegen fehlt bisher eine grundlegendere Motivation zur Verdeutlichung der Korrelation zwischen den Methoden des Usability Engineering und der gesamtwirtschaftlichen Perspektive eines Softwareprojekts. Dieser Beitrag soll die Verknüpfung zwischen der Usability und Wirtschaftlichkeit eines Systems aufzeigen und motivieren. Die geeignete Methodik der Wahl für diese Aufgabe sind Usability-Metriken

Integrating Software Engineering and Usability Engineering

The usability of products gains in importance not only for the users of a system but also for manufacturing organizations. According to Jokela, the advantages for users are far-reaching and include increased productivity, improved quality of work, and increased user satisfaction. Manufacturers also profit significantly through a reduction of support an

From Can They? to Will They? Extending Usability to Accommodate Acceptance Predictions

Within the human-computer interaction (HCI) community, there exists a long and rich research paradigm on “usability engineering (UE).” Within the usability engineering tradition, usability is operationally defined as the effectiveness, efficiency and satisfaction with which specified users can perform particular tasks in a given environment (see e.g., Shackel 1991, Nielsen, 1993). Effectiveness answers: can users perform their tasks? Efficiency means: what resources do users expend to achieve a given outcome (e.g., time, effort)? Finally, satisfaction measures assess how well users like the application

Usability Engineering For Successful Open Citizen Science

Do-it-yourself construction kits for sensor stations is a novel approach for citizen driven sensor networks. In this paper we present the development of SenseBox, a toolkit for open source sensor applications. We provide manuals and open source toolkits for hardware makers to establish a large scale sensor network in Germany, and additionally for schools to teach secondary school students programming in a playful and simple way based on open source microcontrollers. All collected data is open and being published on OpenSenseMap, our platform for open sensor data. After a test phase where we equipped citizens with construction kits for continuous measurements we discovered that most of the stations were disconnected after a few weeks. Following from that we performed a user study to reveal possible error sources during the wiring process, software installation and online registration on OpenSenseMap. Missing general computer skills led to larger problems than wiring of hardware parts

Systematic evaluation of design choices for software development tools

[Abstract]: Most design and evaluation of software tools is based on the intuition and experience of the designers. Software tool designers consider themselves typical users of the tools that they build and tend to subjectively evaluate their products rather than objectively evaluate them using established usability methods. This subjective approach is inadequate if the quality of software tools is to improve and the use of more systematic methods is advocated. This paper summarises a sequence of studies that show how user interface design choices for software development tools can be evaluated using established usability engineering techniques. The techniques used included guideline review, predictive modelling and experimental studies with users