Maintenance support in open source software projects

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 OSS community. The OSS community has some special characteristics which are an obstacle to the direct adoption of many usability techniques as specified in the HCI field. The aim of this research is to adapt and evaluate the feasibility of applying the Personas usability technique to one OSS project from the viewpoint of the development team. The applied research method was a case study of the following OSS project LibreOffice-Writer. We formalized the application procedure of the adapted usability technique. We found that either there were no procedures for adopting usability technique 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 (e.g. wiki) that are very popular in the OSS field. Additionally, we found that there are obstacles to the application of the technique. Despite these obstacles, it is feasible to apply the adapted Personas technique in OSS project.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Applying a Usability Technique in the LibreOffice Writer Project

Llerena

Rodríguez

Castro

et al. 2020

CLEIej

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Adapting usability techniques for application in open source Software: A multiple case study

Llerena

Rodríguez

Castro

et al. 2019

Information and Software Technology

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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.

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“…Some OSS communities nowadays do not have processes in place to guarantee that, taking into account the features of this community as a whole, the developed software is good [2]. Shortcomings with respect to process, activity, task and technique definition in the field of OSS development has led researchers from different fields to take an interest in this field of research and try to remedy the failings [3][4][5]. The growth in the number of non-developer OSS application users and the escalating use of these applications have created a need for and interest in developing usable OSS [6][7][8][9][10].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Applying a Usability Technique in the Open Source Software Development Process: Experiences from the Trenches

Llerena¹,

Rodríguez²,

Llerena³

et al. 2018

Trends in E-Learning

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The growth in the number of non-developer open source software (OSS) application users has drawn attention to usability in the OSS community. OSS communities do not generally know how to apply usability techniques and are unclear about which techniques to use in each activity of the development process. The aim of our research is to determine the feasibility of applying the focus groups technique in the OSS ERMaster project. To do this, we participated as project volunteers. We used the case study research method to investigate technique application and OSS community participation. As a result, we identified adverse conditions that were an obstacle to the application of the original technique. We then adapted the technique to make it applicable in an OSS project. We can conclude that was not easy to recruit OSS users and developers to participate in technique application.

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Maintenance support in open source software projects

Abstract: Abstract-Easy

Cited by 8 publications

References 36 publications

Applying a Usability Technique in the LibreOffice Writer Project

Applying a Usability Technique in the LibreOffice Writer Project

Adapting usability techniques for application in open source Software: A multiple case study

Applying a Usability Technique in the Open Source Software Development Process: Experiences from the Trenches

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