Exploratory inspection—a user‐based learning method for improving open source software usability

Abstract

The increasingly widespread use of open source software (OSS) is an indication of its success. However, as a software development model OSS still has shortcomings that need to be resolved. In particular, the question of usability and its improvement in an OSS context remains a significant ongoing issue that demands further investigation. This is especially so given the unique manner in which OSS diverges from traditional software development models. Current experience with OSS does not favor the existence of a positive relation between the standard OSS development paradigm and good usability practice. We believe that addressing the inadequacy of usability expertise in the OSS community will improve the quality of its products and enhance their competitiveness. Motivated by the unique user‐driven character of the OSS model, we propose an exploratory method for inspection which is intended to assist OSS users in contributing to open source usability inspection. This method provides an effective adaptation of the ‘learning‐by‐doing’ approach to the domain of usability inspection. This is accomplished by innovatively applying usability patterns to guide usability exploration, incorporating strategies for ‘outlining knowledge’ and ‘exploration freedom’ and implementing both techniques in an integrated inspection environment. The results of an experiment involving a group of OSS users inspecting an open source project called dotproject demonstrate that this method outperforms traditional heuristics‐based inspection. The paper also considers the applicability of the usability method and tool developed to usability improvement in the context of traditional proprietary development. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Non-response, Social Exclusion, and False Acceptance: Gatekeeping Tactics and Usability Work in Free-Libre Open Source Software Development

“…Several HCI studies have addressed the introduction of usability activities into FLOSS development context [7][8][9][10][11][12][29][30][31][32][33][34][35][36]38,39,42], but the challenges as regards this still seem to prevail. Moreover, there has not previously been reported this kind of long-term research intervention involving multiple FLOSS case projects, spanning multiple years and focusing on the boundary management and gatekeeping aspects of the interactions between the usability specialists and FLOSS developers.…”

“…Different kinds of usability methods have been suggested for FLOSS development. Several articles recommend conducting usability testing [7,10,32,33,34], while some argue also for usability inspections in FLOSS projects [33,34]. For usability design, user interface design using blogs has been suggested [32], as has the establishment and use of usability infrastructure such as discussion forums, mailing lists, and design areas [8,10,30,32].…”

Usability in Company Open Source Software Context - Initial Findings from an Empirical Case Study

“…In OSS development, the developers typically produce the SW for themselves. From the viewpoint of non technical users, usability of the OSS tends to be poor, and the development process anything but 'user centered' [1], [3], [4], [14], [19], [20]. Therefore, usability is becoming a relevant topic of research in the OSS context, even though, to date, it has not been examined much [1], [4], [14], [19].…”

“…The user population of OSS is becoming larger, including a growing number of non-technical users, who are not interested in OSS development, but only in the resulting solution [4], [8], [14], [15], [18]. Therefore, usability and high quality UI are becoming an important issues also in OSS context [1], [14], [19], [20]. This paper reports initial findings of an interpretive case study designed to analyze usability and UI development in company OSS development context.…”

Usability bugs in open-source software and online forums

“…Zhao et al [3] relate improvement in software quality to usability of OSS products. By analyzing a set of hypotheses they study effects of different components on effectiveness and efficiency of OSS usability improvement.…”