Active Involvement of Software Developers in Usability Engineering: Two Small-Scale Case Studies
Abstract
The essence of usability evaluations is to produce feedback that supports the downstream utility so the interaction design can be improved and problems can be fixed. In practice, software development organizations experience several obstacles for conducting usability engineering. One suggested approach is to train and involve developers in all phases of usability activities from evaluations, to problem reporting, and making redesign proposals. Only limited work has previously investigated the impact of actively involving developers in usability engineering. In this paper, we present two small-scale case studies in which we investigate the developers’ experience of conducting usability evaluations and participating in a redesign workshop. In both case studies developers actively engaged in both activities. Per the developers, this approach supported problem understanding, severity ratings, and problem fixing. At the organizational level, we found that the attitude towards and understanding of the role of usability engineering improved.
Domains
Computer Science [cs]Origin | Files produced by the author(s) |
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