[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
