Paper Info
Title
Adapting usability techniques for application in open source Software: A multiple case study.
Abstract
Abstract Context As a result of the growth of non-developer users of OSS applications, usability has over the last ten years begun to attract the interest of the open source software (OSS) community. The OSS community has some special characteristics (such as worldwide geographical distribution of both users and developers and missing resources) which are an obstacle to the direct adoption of many usability techniques as specified in the human-computer interaction (HCI) field. Objective The aim of this research is to adapt and evaluate the feasibility of applying four usability techniques: user profiles, personas, direct observation and post-test information to four OSS projects from the viewpoint of the development team. Method The applied research method was a multiple case study of the following OSS projects: Quite Universal Circuit Simulator, PSeInt, FreeMind and OpenOffice Writer. Results We formalized the application procedure of each of the adapted usability techniques. We found that either there were no procedures for adopting usability techniques in OSS or they were not fully systematized. Additionally, we identified the adverse conditions that are an obstacle to their adoption in OSS and propose the special adaptations required to overcome the obstacles. To avoid some of the adverse conditions, we created web artefacts (online survey, wiki and forum) that are very popular in the OSS field. Conclusion It is necessary to adapt usability techniques for application in OSS projects considering their idiosyncrasy. Additionally, we found that there are obstacles (for example, number of participant users, biased information provided by developers) to the application of the techniques. Despite these obstacles, it is feasible to apply the adapted techniques in OSS projects.
Year
DOI
Venue
2019
10.1016/j.infsof.2018.10.011
Information and Software Technology
Keywords
Field
DocType
Open source software,Usability techniques,User profiles,Personas,Direct observation,Post-test information
Obstacle,Software engineering,Systems engineering,Application procedure,Computer science,Persona,Usability,Quite Universal Circuit Simulator,Adverse conditions,Applied research,Open source software
Journal
Volume
ISSN
Citations 
107
0950-5849
1
PageRank 
References 
Authors
0.36
30
4
Name
Order
Citations
PageRank
Lucrecia Llerena112.39
Nancy Rodriguez213.07
John W. Castro33510.47
Silvia Teresita Acuña47427.26