Improving a Usability Inspection Technique Based on Quantitative and Qualitative Analysis

Abstract

Usability is one of the most important factors that determine the quality of software product. Many usability inspection methods are gaining popularity as an effective alternative for addressing usability issues. However, usability evaluations are often avoided by developers and software companies due to their lack of knowledge and experience in the field. Usability evaluation can be expensive in terms of time and human resources; and sometimes companies' projects do not have budget to hire an expert inspector. Additionally, most of the evaluation methods can only be applied late in development, increasing correction costs. Aiming at solving this problem, we proposed a set of inspection techniques called MIT -Model Inspection Techniques for Usability Evaluation. This paper focuses on one of these techniques: the MIT2 technique that supports the inspection of mockups by software engineers. The goal of this paper is to present the evaluation and the evolution of MIT 2 (version 2), through the results of an empirical study. We discuss the quantitative and qualitative results of the result and their impact on improving the MIT2 technique. We analyzed the qualitative data using the procedures from the Grounded Theory (GT) method. Results indicated that our technique assists nonexpert inspectors uncovering usability problems effectively; the MIT 2 (v2) was considered easy to use and useful by the participants of the study. Finally, the qualitative analysis points out relevant improvement opportunities. Keywords-usability evaluation; usability inspection; mockup; empirical studies. I. INTRODUÇÃOUm dos atributos de qualidade mais importante para a aceitabilidade do software é a usabilidade [15]. Segundo a norma ISO/IEC 25010 [11], esta é definida como a "capacidade que o software tem de ser entendido, usado e aprendido, e também sua capacidade de agradar ao usuário, quando utilizado sob condições específicas".Alguns métodos de avaliação têm sido propostos para auxiliar na detecção de defeitos de usabilidade, porém muitas empresas de software não os têm utilizado [8]. Devido à falta de conhecimento sobre os métodos, várias empresas dependem de especialistas para realizar avaliações de usabilidade [8]. E a contratação destes especialistas aumenta os custos do projeto de desenvolvimento. Além disso, a maior parte dos métodos de avaliação só pode ser aplicada mais tarde no processo de desenvolvimento, aumentando os custos de correção [8]. Diante deste contexto, torna-se importante propor técnicas que possam ser aplicadas pelos próprios engenheiros de software (não especialistas em usabilidade) para avaliar a usabilidade de artefatos nas fases iniciais dos projetos de desenvolvimento. Os benefícios de utilizar este tipo de técnica são: (i) apoiar os desenvolvedores a aprender sobre usabilidade e projeto de interação e (ii) diminuir os custos de avaliação de usabilidade.Um dos artefatos construídos durante as fases iniciais do processo de desenvolvimento é o mockup. Segundo Luna et al.[13], mockups são artefatos usados para re...

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