Applying the WDP Technique to Usability Inspections in Web Development Organizations

Author(s):  
Tayana Conte ◽  
Verônica T. Vaz ◽  
Jobson Massolar ◽  
Andrew Bott ◽  
Emilia Mendes ◽  
...  

This chapter presents the WDP (Web Design Perspectives-based Usability Evaluation), an inspection technique specifically designed to assess the usability of Web applications. This technique combines Web design perspectives and the heuristic evaluation method proposed by Nielsen (1994b). In addition to describing the components of the WDP technique this chapter also illustrates its use in practice by means of an industrial case study where the technique is applied to inspect a real Web application. In this case study, developers and requirement assessment staff applied the WDP technique to evaluate the usability of modules developed from scratch for a Web application. The results of this case study indicate the feasibility of performing usability inspections with the participation of a software project’s stakeholders, even when stakeholders are not usability experts.

Author(s):  
Helena Hashemi Farzaneh ◽  
Lorenz Neuner

AbstractMuch of the work in design research focusses on the development of methods and tools to support engineering designers. Many of these tools are nowadays implemented in software. Due to the strongly growing use of computers and smart devices in the last two decades, the expectations of users increased dramatically. In particular users expect good usability, for example little effort for learning to apply the software. Therefore, the usability evaluation of design software tools is crucial. A software tool with bad usability will not be used in industrial practice. Recommendations for usability evaluation of software often stem from the field of Human Computer Interaction. The aim of this paper is to tailor these general approaches to the specific needs of engineering design. In addition, we propose a method to analyse the results of the evaluation and to derive suggestions for improving the design software tool. We apply the usability evaluation method on a use case - the KoMBi software tool for bio-inspired design. The case study provides additional insights with regards to problem, causes and improvement categories.


Author(s):  
Maristella Matera ◽  
Francesca Rizzo ◽  
Rebeca Cortázar ◽  
Asier Perallos

Given the emergent need for usability, during last year’s traditional development processes have been extended for enabling the fulfillment of usability requirements. Usability Evaluation Methods (UEMs) have been therefore proposed at any stage of the development process, to verify the usability of incremental design artifacts, as well as of the final product. This chapter surveys the most emergent UEMs, to be adopted during the whole lifecycle of Web information systems for promoting usability. For each evaluation method, the main features, as well as the emerging advantages and drawbacks are illustrated. Some future trends, related to the need of evaluating the usability of UEMs are also discussed.


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.  


2010 ◽  
Vol 45 ◽  
Author(s):  
Samuel Ssemugabi ◽  
Ruth De Villiers

The Internet, World Wide Web (WWW) and e-learning are contributing to new forms of teaching and learning. Such environments should be designed and evaluated in effective ways, considering both usability- and pedagogical issues. The selection of usability evaluation methods (UEMs) is influenced by the cost of a methods and its effectiveness in addressing users’ issues. The issue of usability is vital in e-learning, where students cannot begin to learn unless they can first use the application. Heuristic evaluation (HE) remains the most widely-used usability evaluation method. This paper describes meta-evaluation research that investigated an HE of a web-based learning (WBL) application. The evaluations were based on a synthesised framework of criteria, related to usability and learning within WBL environments. HE was found to be effective in terms of the number and nature of problems identified in the target application by a complementary team of experienced experts. The findings correspond closely with those of a survey among learners.


Author(s):  
Layla Hasan

This research aims to suggest key design characteristics that are necessary for developing usable e-commerce websites in the Arab world. A comprehensive usability evaluation of four leading Arab e-commerce websites was conducted using the heuristic evaluation method. The results identified major and minor usability problems and major and minor good design characteristics on the selected websites. Based on the results, 51 key design characteristics were suggested. The recommended key design characteristics comprised two levels according to their priority: level one which includes mandatory key design characteristics and level two which includes supplementary design characteristics. The key design characteristics in each level were categorized under specific pages and areas that can be found on any e-commerce website. Such categorizations could direct website evaluators and designers to important pages and areas that should be considered to improve the overall usability of e-commerce websites. The results of this research are particularly important to developing countries which are still facing challenges that may affect the design and accessibility of usable and useful websites. These relate to low speed of accessing the Internet and a lack of website designers who have experience in customers’ needs and websites’ usable design characteristics.


From the physical book store to the online bookstore, business owners find a way to meet the demands of their prospective customers. The daily advancement in technology has brought about a huge change the operation of e-commerce. The development of the Progressive Web Applications (PWA) by Google has caused a revolution in mobile development. Using an online bookstore as a case study, this research work presents a PWA architectural framework that can be adopted by any e-commerce applications. This was achieved after a systematic review of existing online bookstore models was carried out – identifying the gaps which will serve as strengths for the proposed model. Also, the emerging technology of PWA was critically reviewed to solidify the proposed model. Adoption of the model will avoid current issues faced the world of mobile development especially code fragmentation. However, exploring the payment gateways and modules will help solidify the model.


SEMINASTIKA ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 99-106
Author(s):  
Gracella Tambunan ◽  
Lit Malem Ginting

Usability is a factor that indicates the success of an interactive product or system, such as a mobile application. The increasing use of smartphones demands a more accurate and effective usability evaluation method to find usability problems, so that they can be used for product improvement in the development process. This study compares the Cognitive Walkthrough method with Heuristic Evaluation in evaluating the usability of the SIRS Del eGov Center mobile application. Evaluation with these two methods will be carried out by three evaluators who act as experts. Finding problems and recommending improvements from each method will produce an improvement prototype made in the form of a high-fidelity prototype. Each prototype will be tested against ten participants using the Usability Testing method, which will generate scores through the SUS table. From the test scores, the percentage of Likert scale and the success rate of each prototype will be found. The results show that between the two usability evaluation methods, the Heuristic Evaluation method is the more effective method, finds more usability problems, and has a higher Likert scale percentage, which is 66.5%, while Cognitive Walkthrough is 64.75%.


2019 ◽  
Vol 31 (3) ◽  
pp. 97-112
Author(s):  
Ong Chin Ann ◽  
Fu Swee Tee ◽  
Voon Yang Nen

Web applications are an important platform in today's society, which humans rely on to complete daily tasks. Most of the web applications were developed with sophisticated, well-known, and powerful web development frameworks. While these frameworks evolve and grow at exponential rate, it become very complex, challenging to learn and no longer intuitive for web application developers, especially those who are inexperience and amateur. There is a need for a simpler web development framework which is sufficient for contemporary web application development. Pigeon-table is a simple module developed under ngPigeon project with the aim to generate web content, i.e. table using data from MySQL database with a single html tag. Pigeon-table is intuitive and easy to learn as it was developed with the principle “web developer-centred design” in mind. A pilot test was conducted in this study to evaluate the satisfactory level among amateur web application developers towards pigeon-table as nano-framework.


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