Integrating usability engineering in the software development lifecycle based on international standards

Abstract

The integration of usability activities into software development lifecycles still remains to be a challenge. Most of the existing integration approaches appear to be on an operational level and cannot be transferred to other processes. Furthermore, UE standards and methods are hardly applied. How can organizations be supported in understanding and using this existing knowledge? The approach in this paper focuses on the constellation of standards to integrate UE and SE. Therefore, current development processes and standards will be analyzed and discussed to formulate recommendations for activities. In this manner, a toolset will be established to support the selection of suitable methods, the documentation and communication of intermediary results as well as the definition of competencies.

A Framework for Integrating Usability Practices into Small-Sized Software Development Organizations

“…Small software organizations have the following strengths: Employees perform tasks in a cross-functional pattern, and small organizations use recourses efficiently because each employee is expected to be actively involved in the organization's activities at all times [7]. On the other hand, small organizations suffer from limited resources relating to time, money, and people [7]; and lack of skills, knowledge, and experience regarding UE methods and standards [1]. Aikio [3] indicated that usability methods are unknown, underused, and inaccessible to common developers and small-and medium-sized software-development teams.…”

“…However, according to limited human resources and smaller iterations in a process, the adoption of standards in SME hardly exists [1].The famous international standard (ISO 13407) proposed a framework for the integration of usability at all stages of a development process. This standard is replaced by (ISO 9241-210), which provides requirements and recommendations for human-centered design principles and activities throughout the life cycle of computer-based interactive systems.…”

“…Usability and user-centered design methods are recognized as important quality aspects in the software-development life cycle when looking at today's industry; However, the integration of usability engineering (UE) and software engineering (SE) still remains a challenge in practice [1]. Different human computer interaction (HCI) engineering methods have been proposed for developing highly usable software, but the integration of these methods into softwaredevelopment life cycles is seldom realized in industrial software settings [2].…”

“…Aikio [3] indicated that usability integration is limited to large organizations; therefore, many large organizations recognize usability as an important quality aspect in the software-development process, and employ usability engineering (UE) methods and standards. On the other hand, there is a lack of knowledge and experience regarding UE methods and standards in small-and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) [1]. Current studies show that the adoption of UE methods in SMEs is up to 28% in a sample of 2,000 participating companies, while 53% stated that they do not use or rarely use a method.…”

“…Recently, software developers in SMEs have become aware of the importance of usability issues, but they face difficulties with respect to integrating usability practices into the development process. Furthermore, usability methods are still unknown to common developers in SMEs [1]. In this paper, we offer developers a framework for usability integration in small software-development organizations.…”