scholarly journals An Empirical Study of Open Source Software Usability

2011 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-16 ◽  
Author(s):  
Arif Raza ◽  
Luiz Fernando Capretz ◽  
Faheem Ahmed
Keyword(s):  
Empirical Study ◽  
Open Source ◽  
Open Source Software ◽  
Research Model ◽  
Key Factors ◽  
Software Developers ◽  
Data Set ◽  
Software Usability ◽  
Novice Users ◽  
The Relationship

Recent years have seen a sharp increase in the use of open source projects by common novice users; Open Source Software (OSS) is thus no longer a reserved arena for software developers and computer gurus. Although user-centered designs are gaining popularity in OSS, usability is still not considered one of the prime objectives in many design scenarios. This paper analyzes industry users’ perception of usability factors, including understandability, learnability, operability, and attractiveness on OSS usability. The research model of this empirical study establishes the relationship between the key usability factors and OSS usability from industrial perspective. In order to conduct the study, a data set of 105 industry users is included. The results of the empirical investigation indicate the significance of the key factors for OSS usability.

An Empirical Study of Open Source Software Usability

2013 ◽  
pp. 1-17
Author(s):  
Arif Raza ◽  
Luiz Fernando Capretz ◽  
Faheem Ahmed
Keyword(s):  
Empirical Study ◽  
Open Source ◽  
Open Source Software ◽  
Sharp Increase ◽  
Research Model ◽  
Key Factors ◽  
Data Set ◽  
Software Usability ◽  
Novice Users ◽  
The Relationship

Recent years have seen a sharp increase in the use of open source projects by common novice users; Open Source Software (OSS) is thus no longer a reserved arena for software developers and computer gurus. Although user-centered designs are gaining popularity in OSS, usability is still not considered one of the prime objectives in many design scenarios. This paper analyzes industry users’ perception of usability factors, including understandability, learnability, operability, and attractiveness on OSS usability. The research model of this empirical study establishes the relationship between the key usability factors and OSS usability from industrial perspective. In order to conduct the study, a data set of 105 industry users is included. The results of the empirical investigation indicate the significance of the key factors for OSS usability.

scholarly journals Improvement of Open Source Software Usability: An Empirical Evaluation from Developers' Perspective

2010 ◽  
Vol 2010 ◽  
pp. 1-12 ◽  
Author(s):  
Arif Raza ◽  
Luiz F. Capretz ◽  
Faheem Ahmed
Keyword(s):  
Open Source ◽  
Open Source Software ◽  
User Satisfaction ◽  
Empirical Investigation ◽  
Empirical Evaluation ◽  
Research Model ◽  
Key Factors ◽  
Data Set ◽  
Software Usability ◽  
The Impact

User satisfaction has always been important for software success whether it is Open Source Software (OSS) or closed proprietary software. Even though we do not presume that OSS always has poor usability, as there are examples of good usable open source software, it would still be agreed that OSS usability has room for further improvement. This paper presents an empirical investigation to study the impact of some key factors on OSS usability from developers' points of view. This is one of the series of four studies that we are conducting regarding improvement of OSS usability from OSS developers, users, contributors, and industry perspectives. The research model of this empirical investigation studies and establishes the relationship between the key usability factors from developers' perspective and OSS usability. A data set of 106 OSS developers from 18 open source projects of varied size has been used to study the research model. The results of this study provide empirical evidence that the studied key factors play a significant role in improving OSS usability.

scholarly journals USABILITY IN OPEN SOURCE SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT: OPINIONS AND PRACTICE

2006 ◽  
Vol 35 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Morten Sieker Andreasen ◽  
Henrik Villemann Nielsen ◽  
Simon Ormholt Schrøder ◽  
Jan Stage
Keyword(s):  
Empirical Study ◽  
Software Development ◽  
Open Source ◽  
Open Source Software ◽  
Common Sense ◽  
Questionnaire Survey ◽  
Usability Evaluation ◽  
Software Developers ◽  
Commercial Software ◽  
Proprietary Software

Open Source Software (OSS) development has gained significant importance in the production of soft-ware products. Open Source Software developers have produced systems with a functionality that is competitive with similar proprietary software developed by commercial software organizations. Yet OSS is usually designed for and by power-users, and OSS products have been criticized for having little or no emphasis on usability. We have conducted an empirical study of the developers’ opinions about usability and the way usability engineering is practiced in a variety of OSS projects. The study included a questionnaire survey and a series of interviews, where we interviewed OSS contributors with both technical and usability backgrounds. Overall we found that OSS developers are interested in usability, but in practice it is not top priority, and OSS projects rarely employs systematic usability evaluation. Most of the efforts are based on common sense. Most developers have a very limited understanding of usability, and there is a lack of resources and evaluation methods fitting into the OSS paradigm.

scholarly journals Software and database structure to analyze the relationship between aerosol, clouds and precipitation: SAMAC

2014 ◽  
Vol 7 (4) ◽  
pp. 3645-3679 ◽  
Author(s):  
S. Gagné ◽  
L. P. MacDonald ◽  
W. R. Leaitch ◽  
J. R. Pierce
Keyword(s):  
Open Source ◽  
Open Source Software ◽  
Object Oriented ◽  
Precipitation Data ◽  
Aircraft Measurements ◽  
Data Set ◽  
Airborne Measurements ◽  
Database Structure ◽  
Software Program ◽  
The Relationship

Abstract. The analysis of aircraft-based measurements of clouds are critical for studies of aerosol and clouds. Many such measurements have been taken, but it is difficult to compare such data across instruments, flights and campaigns. We present a new open-source software program, SAMAC (Software for Airborne Measurements of Aerosol and Clouds), that may enable a more generic approach to the analysis of aerosol-cloud-precipitation data. The software offers a faster and standardized approach to the analysis of aircraft measurements of clouds across campaigns. SAMAC is an object-oriented software program in which a cloud is an object. The cloud objects come with built-in methods and properties that allow for the quick generation of basic plots and calculations, which provide a quick view of the data set and may be used to compare clouds and to filter for specific characteristics. Other researchers are encouraged to apply the software to their data and to contribute to its improvement. SAMAC can be downloaded at https://github.com/StephGagne/SAMAC/releases.

scholarly journals Software to analyze the relationship between aerosol, clouds, and precipitation: SAMAC

2016 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
pp. 619-630 ◽  
Author(s):  
S. Gagné ◽  
L. P. MacDonald ◽  
W. R. Leaitch ◽  
J. R. Pierce
Keyword(s):  
Open Source ◽  
Open Source Software ◽  
Object Oriented ◽  
Precipitation Data ◽  
Aircraft Measurements ◽  
Data Set ◽  
Cloud Structure ◽  
Airborne Measurements ◽  
Software Program ◽  
The Relationship

Abstract. The analysis of aircraft-based measurements of clouds is critical for studies of aerosol and of clouds. Many such measurements have been taken, but it is difficult to compare such data across instruments, flights and campaigns. We present a new open-source software program, SAMAC (Software for Airborne Measurements of Aerosol and Clouds), that may enable a more systematic and comparable approach to the analysis of aerosol–cloud–precipitation data. The software offers a cooperative and reproducible approach to the analysis of aircraft measurements of clouds across campaigns. SAMAC is an object-oriented software program in which a cloud is an object; all the data related to a cloud is contained in the cloud object. The cloud objects come with built-in methods and functions that allow for the quick generation of basic plots and calculations, SAMAC provides a quick view of the data set and may be used to compare clouds and to filter for specific characteristics. Other researchers can readily use already submitted algorithms once their data is placed in the cloud structure provided, and they can contribute their own algorithms to the software for others to see and use. This approach would improve comparability, reproducibility and transparency by allowing others to replicate results and test the same algorithms on different data. SAMAC can be downloaded at https://github.com/StephGagne/SAMAC/releases.

Strategies for Improving Open Source Software Usability

2009 ◽  
Vol 1 (4) ◽  
pp. 49-64
Author(s):  
Luyin Zhao ◽  
Fadi P. Deek ◽  
James A. McHugh
Keyword(s):  
Open Source ◽  
Open Source Software ◽  
Positive Impact ◽  
Source Model ◽  
User Acceptance ◽  
Exploratory Learning ◽  
Software Developers ◽  
Web Based ◽  
Software Usability ◽  
Usability Problems

The Open Source Software (OSS) movement has had enormous impact on how software is created and continues to attract interest from researchers, software developers and users. A factor that may be inhibiting OSS from achieving greater success is usability, a fundamental characteristic to user acceptance of software. Motivated by the uniquely user-driven nature of the open source model and the extensive user base that participates in OSS projects, the authors propose an exploratory learning method and an associated web-based inspection environment that enables non-experts to contribute to open source usability inspection. This tool uses patternbased usability guidelines to help identify usability knowledge during inspection. The method emphasizes outlining and exploration features which the authors have formally evaluated and the results of which are described. Data collected from a qualitative study indicates positive impact of the proposed method in helping end-users inspect software and achieve better results in discovering usability problems.

scholarly journals Internal Quality Evolution of Open-Source Software Systems

2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (12) ◽  
pp. 5690
Author(s):  
Mamdouh Alenezi
Keyword(s):  
Open Source ◽  
Open Source Software ◽  
Software Evolution ◽  
Quality Metrics ◽  
Internal Quality ◽  
Software Systems ◽  
Software Metric ◽  
Significant Difference ◽  
The Relationship

The evolution of software is necessary for the success of software systems. Studying the evolution of software and understanding it is a vocal topic of study in software engineering. One of the primary concepts of software evolution is that the internal quality of a software system declines when it evolves. In this paper, the method of evolution of the internal quality of object-oriented open-source software systems has been examined by applying a software metric approach. More specifically, we analyze how software systems evolve over versions regarding size and the relationship between size and different internal quality metrics. The results and observations of this research include: (i) there is a significant difference between different systems concerning the LOC variable (ii) there is a significant correlation between all pairwise comparisons of internal quality metrics, and (iii) the effect of complexity and inheritance on the LOC was positive and significant, while the effect of Coupling and Cohesion was not significant.

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