Usability challenges in an Ethiopian software development organization

Teka, Degif; Dittrich, Yvonne; Kifle, Mesfin

doi:10.1145/2897586.2897604

Cited by 10 publications

(8 citation statements)

References 27 publications

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“…There are many well-organized private and public limited companies in Ethiopia. However, construction companies are not well organized and simply place a forename compared to the other business companies in the past few years [11]. At present, these construction companies are developing construction and services for different organizations or enterprises.…”

Section: Data Collection and Dataset Preparationmentioning

confidence: 99%

A Model for Identifying the Most Effective Contract Type in Construction Companies

Taye

Shiferaw²,

Feleke³

2022

Preprint

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Construction managers that are conversant with project management knowledge areas handle the construction project. Intelligent means discerning or looking about, and these construction managers are well-versed in their fields. However, the majority of construction projects in construction companies fail around the world, particularly in low-income countries such as Ethiopia, due to a lack of construction project managers who are unfamiliar with contract management that are used without considering the company's situations and project contexts. The goal of this research is to create a machine-learning-based prediction model for finding the most effective contract type in construction companies. Data from Ethiopian construction enterprises and associations (particularly from the Amhara National Regional State Job & Training Bureau and its branches in Addis Zemen, Woreta, and Debre Tabor) were collected using a purposeful sample strategy. Support vector machines scored 93 %, decision trees scored 92.30 %, and K-nearest neighbors scored 91.20 %, and logistic regression scored 88 % on the testing data set, respectively. Furthermore, in comparison to the other classifiers, Support vector machines outperformed the best in the experiments. The study suggests gathering more building project datasets from construction businesses and comparing them to our findings to determine the most effective contract type.

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Section: Data Collection and Dataset Preparationmentioning

confidence: 99%

A Model for Identifying the Most Effective Contract Type in Construction Companies

Taye

Shiferaw²,

Feleke³

2022

Preprint

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“…Studies SM06, and SM10 reported some contextual challenges for usability works in developing countries. Mentions were made of software development companies in Nigeria (SM06) and Ethiopia (SM10). Specific mentions were made of heterogeneity of users, developers' lack of familiarity with usability methods.…”

Section: Rq6 -What Challenges Have Been Reported In Software Developmmentioning

confidence: 99%

A Systematic Mapping Study of HCI Practice Research

Ogunyemi

Lamas

Lárusdóttir

et al. 2018

International Journal of Human–Computer Interaction

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Human Computer Interaction (HCI) practice has emerged as a research domain in the HCI field and is growing. The need to transfer HCI practices to the industry began significantly with the works of Nielsen on usability engineering. To date, methods, and techniques for designing, evaluating and implementing interactive systems for human use have continued to emerge. It is, therefore, justified to conduct a systematic mapping study to determine the landscape of HCI practice research. A Systematic Mapping Study method was used to map 142 studies according to research type, topic, and contribution. These were then analyzed to determine an overview of HCI practice research. The objective was to analyze studies on HCI practice and present prominent issues that characterize the HCI practice research landscape. Secondly, to identify pressing challenges regarding HCI practices in software/systems development companies. The results show that HCI practice research has steadily increased since 2012. The majority of the studies explored focused on evaluation research that largely contributed to evaluation methods or processes. Most of the studies were on design tools and techniques, design methods and contexts, design work and organizational culture, and collaboration and team communication. Interviews, case studies, and survey methods have been prominently used as research methods. HCI techniques are mostly used during the initial phase of development, and during evaluation. HCI practice challenges in companies are mostly process-related and on performance of usability and UX activities. The major challenge seems to be to find a way to collect and incorporate user feedback in a timely manner, especially in agile processes. There are areas identified in this study as needing more research.

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“…Future Work. The survey presented here was implemented in the context of a PhD project on including UCD in agile development in Ethiopia (see also (Teka et al, 2016)). The article (Teka et al, 2016) is based on an initial case to take measures and solutions for the usability challenges resulted here as well as the detail findings of the case.…”

Section: Figure 5: Benefits Of User Involvementmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Addressing usefulness and usability of software systems is of core importance to the people in such context. Ethiopia is here no exception (Teka et al, 2016).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 98%

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User Involvement and Usability Evaluation in Ethiopian Software Organizations

Teka

Dittrich

Kifle

et al. 2017

E J Info Sys Dev Countries

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Usability is central especially in contexts with highly heterogeneous user groups as it is the case in developing countries. User involvement and participation has positive impacts towards developing usable software and system success and it is one of the core principles in user centered design (UCD). But how does the industry in developing countries work with UCD and usability evaluation? The article reports from a survey on usability evaluation and UCD practices in Ethiopian software organizations. It aims at exploring the practice of usability evaluation, user involvement and participation in the software organizations in Ethiopia. Some part of the survey question is adapted from a previously conducted survey in Italy and Denmark and further expanded with a set of questions referring to user involvement and participation. The survey was triangulated with interviews with a subset of the respondents. The results show that the percentage of organizations performing some form of usability evaluation is low in Ethiopia. The challenges of usability evaluation observed in the study was analyzed with respect to the challenges of 'digital divide' against the publicly available methods and practices and among developed and developing nations using real access/ real impact criteria. The result shows that there are some unique challenges of usability not discussed in the literature reviewed in any detail such as less IT skills, lack of trained professionals, and lack of awareness. The result for user involvement shows also some unique challenges: lack of user motivation, acceptance of change and cultural influence. However, more than 80% of the surveyed organizations claim involving users in some kind in product development. The implications of these findings with respect to the need to contextualize UCD and usability methods are discussed.

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Usability challenges in an Ethiopian software development organization

Cited by 10 publications

References 27 publications

A Model for Identifying the Most Effective Contract Type in Construction Companies

A Model for Identifying the Most Effective Contract Type in Construction Companies

A Systematic Mapping Study of HCI Practice Research

User Involvement and Usability Evaluation in Ethiopian Software Organizations

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