Usability evaluation of a prototype design tool for uncertainty propagation and sensitivity analysis

Software developments in the domain of building performance simulation (BPS) targeting the early design stages of a building need to address two points successfully to be adopted in design practice: (1) facilitating communication between multiple engineering disciplines and (2) the limited amount of design information. The authors consider the limited amount of design information available not as a limit but as a design uncertainty. To focus the designer’s attention the approach chosen here is to extend the capabilities of existing simulation tools with uncertainty and sensitivity analysis. The development of software goes as any product development through stages as design, synthesis and analysis and involves numerous design iterations. The analysis of the prototypical tool extension includes verification und usability evaluation. Whilst the verification of prototypical design tools is necessary to ensure the added analysis functionality is implemented correctly the usability evaluation is to ensure the proposed feature meets the demand of the potential user group. A heuristic usability evaluation was conducted with six expert practitioners using a paper prototype. The quantitative feedback to heuristics as design guidance, process integration, and application confirmed the potential of the tool extension to support design practice. The usability evaluation indicated that expert practitioners would encourage the use of uncertainty propagation and sensitivity analysis if tool extensions to BPS-tools were available. The experts assess uncertainty propagation and sensitivity analysis to add value by reducing the risk of technical design decisions and limiting the extent of design iterations

User Involvement and Usability Evaluation in Ethiopian Software Organizations

Usability is central especially in contexts with highly heterogeneous user groups as it is the case in developing countries. User involvement and participation has positive impacts towards developing usable software and system success and it is one of the core principles in user centered design (UCD). But how does the industry in developing countries work with UCD and usability evaluation? The article reports from a survey on usability evaluation and UCD practices in Ethiopian software organizations. It aims at exploring the practice of usability evaluation, user involvement and participation in the software organizations in Ethiopia. Some part of the survey question is adapted from a previously conducted survey in Italy and Denmark and further expanded with a set of questions referring to user involvement and participation. The survey was triangulated with interviews with a subset of the respondents. The results show that the percentage of organizations performing some form of usability evaluation is low in Ethiopia. The challenges of usability evaluation observed in the study was analyzed with respect to the challenges of 'digital divide' against the publicly available methods and practices and among developed and developing nations using real access/ real impact criteria. The result shows that there are some unique challenges of usability not discussed in the literature reviewed in any detail such as less IT skills, lack of trained professionals, and lack of awareness. The result for user involvement shows also some unique challenges: lack of user motivation, acceptance of change and cultural influence. However, more than 80% of the surveyed organizations claim involving users in some kind in product development. The implications of these findings with respect to the need to contextualize UCD and usability methods are discussed

Integrating internationalization in the user-centered software development process

The final publication is available at Springer via http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-39143-9_27Proceedings of 5th International Conference, CCD 2013, Held as Part of HCI International 2013, Las Vegas, NV, USA, July 21-26, 2013Internationalization is a common practice today in software development. In the most basic sense, internationalization is carried out by applying localization design guidelines to face language translation, icon representation, character sets and so on. However, this practice is mostly intended for design purposes, which results insufficient when applying internationalization in huge projects and, specifically, through a concrete development process. In this paper, a broader framework is provided in order to ensure internationalization through a software development process. To this end, a set of activities and sub-activities will be presented involving not only design but pre-development, analysis, implementation and evaluation issues that need to be considered for a right internationalization assurance in international software development. The idea behind is to bridge the gap between simple and usual localization activities and the user-centered software development process as internationalization assurance also helps increase the quality and usability of the software overall.This work has been supported by the founded projects TIN2011-24139, S2009/TIC-1650 and TIN2011-15009-

A Rule-based Engine to support a Framework for the Experimental Validation of Domain Specific Languages

Software systems are widely used in people daily routines and responsibilities, therefore, systems need to be developed rapidly and efficiently. Domain specific languages (DSLs) are languages that are applied to a specific application domain. Since DSLs provide notations and constructs adapted to a particular domain, they offer gains in expressiveness and ease of use when compared with general-purpose languages (GPLs). Therefore, one of the most important steps in the Software Language Engineering is the evaluation of the languages produced, with the end-users, since the risk of building inappropriate languages, that often do not fit the end users, may decrease productivity. Although DSLs evaluation is one of the most important steps in development process, Software Language Engineers tend to relax the experimental validation of their products due to several reasons like costs (time, means, money, the number of people required, etc.) and required know-how associated with it. The lack of systematic approaches and guidelines to evaluate DSLs, and a comprehensive set of tools may explain this shortcoming in the current state of practice. The Usability Driven DSL development with USE-ME (USE-ME) approach, developed in NOVA-LINCS, "promotes the quality in use of DSLs by building a framework that leverages usability as a main concern". The feedback of the pilot studies was that despite the approach was "more or less easy" to understand it was not easy to model, since "there were too many steps to follow" and the framework did not provide a "guided cycle". So, in order to improve the system usability and the quality of the models produced with USE-ME, we developed a new version of the framework with validation rules implemented with Eclipse Validation Language (EVL) that guide, suggest and validate the Software Language Engineer actions throughout the development process. The validation rules were designed in such a way that the tool educates the user about the process, so that the user makes the best decision regarding his DSL evaluation. We performed two experiments, with different goals. The main goals of the first one was to analyse the effect of validation rules on the USE-ME framework, with respect to their impact on the System Usability Scale, and on the Model Correctness of USE-ME models. We analysed the results and we found evidences of improvements on the System Usability Scale, and on the Model Correctness of models, brought by the addition of the rules. The second experiment was conducted with a research team from Ege University, in Turkey. The main goal of this experiment was to perform a guided evaluation on a DSL related with Multi-Agent Systems, SEA-ML. Since the number of participants was low we cannot draw conclusions regarding this experiment. Despite the significant results from the first experiment further evaluation on the new version of the framework is necessary, this time, with more experienced users and with more complex exercises. With this new experiment, we can compare the results and improve the USE-ME framework

Determination and evaluation of web accessibility

The Web is the most pervasive collaborative technology in widespread use today; however, access to the web and its many applications cannot be taken for granted. Web accessibility encompasses a variety of concerns ranging from societal, political, and economic to individual, physical, and intellectual through to the purely technical. Thus, there are many perspectives from which web accessibility can be understood and evaluated. In order to discuss these concerns and to gain a better understanding of web accessibility, an accessibility framework is proposed using as its base a layered evaluation framework from Computer Supported Co-operative Work research and the ISO standard, ISO/IEC 9126 on software quality. The former is employed in recognition of the collaborative nature of the web and its importance in facilitating communication. The latter is employed to refine and extend the technical issues and to highlight the need for considering accessibility from the viewpoint of the web developer and maintainer as well as the web user. A technically inaccessible web is unlikely to be evolved over time. A final goal of the accessibility framework is to provide web developers and maintainers with a practical basis for considering web accessibility through the development of a set of accessibility factors associated with each identified layer

Embedding accessibility and usability: considerations for e-learning research and development projects

This paper makes the case that if e‐learning research and development projects are to be successfully adopted in real‐world teaching and learning contexts, then they must effectively address accessibility and usability issues; and that these need to be integrated throughout the project. As such, accessibility and usability issues need to be made explicit in project documentation, along with allocation of appropriate resources and time. We argue that accessibility and usability are intrinsically inter‐linked. An integrated accessibility and usability evaluation methodology that we have developed is presented and discussed. The paper draws on a series of mini‐case studies from e‐learning projects undertaken over the past 10 years at the Open University

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

Methodological development

Book description: Human-Computer Interaction draws on the fields of computer science, psychology, cognitive science, and organisational and social sciences in order to understand how people use and experience interactive technology. Until now, researchers have been forced to return to the individual subjects to learn about research methods and how to adapt them to the particular challenges of HCI. This is the first book to provide a single resource through which a range of commonly used research methods in HCI are introduced. Chapters are authored by internationally leading HCI researchers who use examples from their own work to illustrate how the methods apply in an HCI context. Each chapter also contains key references to help researchers find out more about each method as it has been used in HCI. Topics covered include experimental design, use of eyetracking, qualitative research methods, cognitive modelling, how to develop new methodologies and writing up your research