scholarly journals Managing usability evaluation practices in agile development environments

Author(s):  
Aziz Bin Deraman ◽  
Fouad Abdulameer Salman

<span lang="EN-US">Usability evaluation is a core usability activity that minimizes risks and improves product quality. The returns from usability evaluation are undeniable. Neglecting such evaluation at the development stage negatively affects software usability. In this paper, the authors develop a software management tool used to incorporate usability evaluation activities into the agile environment. Using this tool, agile development teams can manage a continuous evaluation process, tightly coupled with the development process, allowing them to develop high quality software products with adequate level of usability. The tool was evaluated through verification, followed by the validation on satisfaction. The evaluation results show that the tool increased software development practitioner satisfaction and is practical for supporting usability work in software projects. </span>

2018 ◽  
Vol 7 (2.28) ◽  
pp. 10 ◽  
Author(s):  
Freddy Paz ◽  
Freddy A. Paz ◽  
José Antonio Pow-Sang ◽  
César Collazos

Heuristic evaluation is one of the most used techniques to evaluate the level of usability of a software product. In this research, we performed a comprehensive analysis of the recent studies which report the use of this method in the context of a software development process. The purpose was to identify the specific way in which each author performs this usability evaluation method, in order to propose a formal protocol. After an indeed examination of these studies, we have determined there are several differences in the way this technique is conducted according to the literature. There is no agreement about the number of inspectors that should participate, the usability principles that should be used, the profile of the specialists who must be part of the assessment team, or the evaluation process that should be followed. This work highlights the available settings and a detailed procedure to perform a heuristic evaluation in the domain of software products.  


1989 ◽  
Vol 33 (18) ◽  
pp. 1218-1222 ◽  
Author(s):  
David W. Biers

This report presents the lessons learned from a software usability test for an external customer. An initial evaluation with naive users revealed problems in the user interface and that the customer's objectives were not being met. After initial resistance to making changes in the software, the customer decided to delay release of its product to implement some of the recommendations and changed the focus of initial release to experienced users. The results of a second evaluation conducted on the revised product with experienced users were positive. Several lessons can be learned from the above evaluation: (1) Usability evaluation should be incorporated earlier in the software development cycle to minimize resistance to changes in a hardened user interface; (2) Organizations should have an independent usability evaluation of software products to avoid the temptation to overlook problems to release the product; (3) Multiple categories of dependent measures should be employed in usability testing because subjective measurement is not always consonant with user performance; and (4) Even though usability testing at the later stages of development may not impact software changes, it is useful to point out areas where training is needed to overcome deficiencies in the software.


Author(s):  
B. Prakash ◽  
V. Viswanathan

<p>Software projects mostly exceeds budget, delivered late and does not meet with the customer’s satisfaction for years. In the past, many traditional development models like waterfall, spiral, iterative, and prototyping methods are used to build the software systems. In recent years, agile models are widely used in developing the software products. The major reasons are – simplicity, incorporating the requirement changes at any time, light-weight approach and delivering the working product early and in short duration. Whatever the development model used, it still remains a challenge for software engineer’s to accurately estimate the size, effort and the time required for developing the software system. This survey focuses on the existing estimation models used in traditional as well in agile software development.</p>


2021 ◽  
pp. 201-206
Author(s):  
Franziska Dobrigkeit ◽  
Christoph Matthies ◽  
Philipp Pajak ◽  
Ralf Teusner

AbstractDesign Thinking (DT) is an established approach to conceptualize software products before starting the product development work. Research suggests that software development can benefit from a continuous integration of DT throughout Agile development processes. However, practitioners and researchers lack an in-depth understanding of which tools from the ever-growing DT toolbox are suited to support software development teams and their processes and how these tools can be applied to the teams’ daily work. As initial steps towards closing this knowledge gap, we present our experiences from testing five different DT tools from a previously developed toolbox with four Agile software development teams. Each team chose three tools to apply to their product, problem, and context during a workshop. We present summarised findings regarding the use cases, benefits, and challenges of these tools as experienced by the participants. Overall, the teams welcomed the DT tools and were able to independently apply them to achieve the desired effects, e.g., to highlight user needs, find product issues, and discover team challenges.


Author(s):  
Sultan Alyahya ◽  
Ohoud Almughram

Abstract The integration of user-centered design (UCD) activities into agile information systems development has become more popular recently. Despite the fact that there are many ways the merging of UCD activities into agile development can be carried out, it has been widely recognized that coordinating design activities with development activities is one of the most common problems, especially in distributed environments where designers, developers and users are spread over several sites. The main approach to coordinate UCD activities with distributed agile development is the use of informal methods (e.g. communication through using video conference tools). In addition to the temporal, geographical and socio-cultural barriers associated with this type of methods, a major limitation is a lack of awareness of how UCD activities and development activities affect each other. Furthermore, some agile project management tools are integrated with design platforms but fail to provide the necessary coordination that helps team members understand how the design and development activities affect their daily work. This research aims to support the effective management of integrating UCD activities into distributed agile development by (i) identifying the key activity dependencies between UX design teams and development teams during distributed UCD/agile development and (ii) designing a computer-based system to provide coordination support through managing these activity dependencies. In order to achieve these objectives, two case studies are carried out. Our findings revealed 10 main dependencies between UCD design teams and development teams as shown by six types of activity. In addition, the participatory design approach shows that developing a computer-based system to manage seven of these selected dependencies is achievable.


2021 ◽  
Vol 2 (4) ◽  
pp. 5378-5394
Author(s):  
Viteri Valle Victor Vicente ◽  
José Luis Domínguez Caiza ◽  
Carmita del Rocío Sánchez Verdezoto ◽  
González León Pablo Oswaldo

El presente trabajo de investigación fue realizado en el año 2020 y 2021, durante la pandemia del COVID-19, es importante hacer esta puntualización puesto que la educación universitaria por años obvió la enseñanza virtual, utilizando las plataformas web como un método optativo al principio, sin embargo, dentro del contexto actual pasaron a ser obligatorias. En este punto del resumen se tiene que aclarar que la herramienta de gestión de aprendizaje, o LMS con el que se trabajo es el Moodle. Es por ello, que fue lanzada a mediados del año 2020 al entorno virtual para los procesos educativos permitiendo una mejor comunicación relativamente entre participantes, también para el desarrollo colectivo e individual del aprendizaje, y siendo parte de ello, la evaluación. La evaluación de los estudiantes es una etapa crítica del proceso educativo, puesto que si es de bajo nivel los estudiantes serán aprobados sin que hayan asimilado los conocimientos mínimos, por el contrario, si es muy estricta probablemente un porcentaje elevado de estudiantes no aprobarían la materia. Por otra parte, el hecho de que los alumnos manejen muy bien las herramientas tecnológicas de esta época provoca que los docentes se sientan presionados durante el proceso de evaluación, puesto que la posibilidad de que los estudiantes se vean tentados a ver las pruebas individuales como evaluaciones colaborativas (grupales) aumenta considerablemente. ¿Cómo han tratado los docentes de inmunizar (usando terminología de estos días) nuestras evaluaciones contra esta posibilidad?, el arsenal de opciones con el que viene equipado el LMS Moodle es variado, se requiere valorar la potencia del tipo de pregunta calculada a la luz del tema que se quiere evaluar, sobre el nivel educativo (que es el  universitario), el ciclo en el que se encuentran nuestros estudiantes (al principio de sus carreras, en la mitad o finalizando), los pre-requisitos que tiene la asignatura y finalmente la capacidad que se tenga para poder implementar las preguntas. Lo que se pretende hacer en este artículo es compartir como se han implementado preguntas calculadas, generadas aleatoriamente para evaluar el tema específico del cálculo de monto, dentro del capítulo de Interés Simple de un curso de Matemáticas Financieras utilizando preguntas calculadas que son generadas a partir de un conjunto de datos que se pueden especificar.   To contextualize, this article was written in 2021 during the COVID-19 pandemic, it is important to make this point since university education for years obviated virtual teaching, using web platforms as an optional method at the beginning, however, within the current context they became mandatory. At this point in the summary, we have to clarify that the learning management tool, or LMS with which we work is Moodle. That is why it was launched in mid-2020 to the virtual environment for educational processes, allowing relatively better communication between participants, also for the collective and individual development of learning, and being part of it, evaluation. The evaluation of students is a critical stage of the educational process, since if it is of a low level, students will be approved without having assimilated the minimum knowledge, on the contrary, if it is very strict, a high percentage of students would probably not pass the subject. On the other hand, the fact that students handle the technological tools of this time very well causes teachers to feel pressured during the evaluation process, since the possibility that students are tempted to see individual tests as evaluations collaborative (group) increases considerably. How have we teachers tried to immunize (using terminology of these days) our evaluations against this possibility? The arsenal of options with which the LMS Moodle is equipped is varied, we need to assess the power of the type of question calculated in light of the subject that we want to evaluate, on the educational level (which is university), the cycle in which our students are (at the beginning of their careers, in the middle or at the end), the prerequisites that the subject has and finally the capacity that we have to be able to implement the questions. What we intend to do in this article is to share how we have implemented calculated questions, randomly generated to evaluate the specific topic of calculating the amount, within the Simple Interest chapter of a Financial Mathematics course using calculated questions that are generated from a set of data that we can specify.


Author(s):  
Izzat Alsmadi ◽  
Saqib Saeed

Typical traditional software development models are initially designed for company-style software project teams. They also assume a typical software project that has somewhat clear goals, scope, budget, and plan. Even Agile development models that are very flexible in considering previous project parameters assume somewhat stable team and project structures. However, in recent years, the authors have noticed expansion in software projects that are developed in a very illusive flexible team, scope, budget, and plan structures. Examples of such projects are those projects offered in open competition (also called crowd sourcing) structure for software developers to be part of. In typical open competition projects, initial, high level project ideas are submitted to the public through the Internet. The project initiators give their initial requirements, constraints, and conditions for successful products or submissions. Teams can be organized before or through the competition. Submission and evaluation of deliverables from teams are subjected to project initiator evaluation along with evaluation teams organized through the open competition host. This chapter investigates all traditional project characteristics. The authors elaborate on all those elements that should be modified to fit the open competition agile structure. They use several case studies to demonstrate management issues related to managing software projects in open competitions.


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