Aspect-Oriented Programming (AOP) is recognized as one of the main techniques for separation of concerns. AOP has been used for automatic evaluation of the usability of WIMP applications, with the aim of monitoring events and GUI components and recording data in logs. A weakness of AOP approaches is low semantic value and a low level of abstraction of the results. One possible solution to overcome these limitations is to use an AO framework for assessing the usability of user tasks. However, little research has been devoted the development of AO frameworks from scratch. Although different design and programming patterns are available, insufficient experience has been reported regarding their application in the development of frameworks. This paper presents AJMU, an AO framework for the automatic evaluation of the usability of user tasks in desktop applications. AJMU was developed from scratch, using AO patterns. This paper also reports on experiments involving AJMU's instantiation with real applications.Key words: Usability, framework, aspect-oriented programming, design patterns, Aspect J INTRODUCTIONAspect-Oriented Programming (AOP; Kiczales et al., 1997) has been used to implement the automatic evaluation of the usability of WIMP applications (Bateman et al., 2009;Holzinger et al., 2011;Humayoun et al., 2009;Shekh and Tyerman, 2010;Tao, 2008Tao, , 2012Tarta and Moldovan, 2006). The predominant approach in this research has been to trace events and the execution of GUI components and store the data in a log, without any context of greater significance. Consequently, the evaluation of usability has little relevance for the evaluator and is not at an appropriate level of abstraction.An AO framework that automatically assesses the different factors of usability (efficiency, effectiveness and satisfaction) for user tasks would be a more appropriate tool. A user task is a unit of analysis that is more relevant and more complex, requiring the implementation of diverse functions, relationships and interactions. Even though popular AO frameworks exist (Spring AOP and JBoss AOP), research on AO frameworks is still in a nascent stage. AOP has primarily been proposed to overcome the weaknesses of OO frameworks (Kulesza et al., 2006;Santos et al., 2007;Vaira and Caplinskas, 2011) and not so much for building frameworks from scratch.When developing a framework rather than an ordinary application, some program constructs or "design elements," are very important. These design elements include abstract modules (classes
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Resumen: La Usabilidad consiste de un conjunto de atributos que permiten evaluar el esfuerzo que deberá invertir un usuario para realizar una tarea determinada a través de la utilización de un software específico. En este sentido, una aplicación se considerará más usable cuanto menos esfuerzo requiera para su utilización.En la actualidad, la World Wide Web, se ha constituido como un enorme repositorio de información que es presentada y puesta a disposición de los usuarios a través de diversos sitios o páginas web cuya finalidad es promover el acceso a la información y de esta manera, garantizar la igualdad de oportunidades a quienes la consumen. Por otro lado, la evolución de las tecnologías que le dan soporte, la han convertido en una plataforma tecnológica sobre la cual es posible desarrollar aplicaciones con un nivel de interacción y funcionalidad similar al de las aplicaciones de escritorio (WIMP).Existen una gran variedad de trabajos sobre usabilidad web, centrados principalmente en aspectos tales como la navegación y la arquitectura de información de los sitios o páginas web. Sin embargo, la usabilidad de las aplicaciones web, que experimentan un alto grado de interacción con el usuario (action-oriented) similar al de las aplicaciones de escritorio, no puede ser evaluadas de la misma manera que en un sitio web (information-oriented) donde la interacción con el usuario es escasa y limitada. Si bien pueden encontrarse una diversidad de trabajos que tratan como objeto de estudio a la usabilidad en aplicaciones, en entornos de escritorio ó moviles, no se han reconocido trabajos referidos a la usabilidad de aplicaciones en entornos web.En este trabajo, se propone un framework basado en AOP, capaz de dar soporte al proceso de evaluación de usabilidad, en aplicaciones web, durante la ejecución de tareas de usuario.Palabras Claves: Usabilidad; Programación Orientada a Aspectos; Aplicaciones Web; Framework. ICT-UNPA-139-2016 ISSN: 1852-4516 Aprobado por Resolución N° 0561/16-R-UNPA 60Esta obra está bajo una Licencia Creative Commons Atribución-NoComercial-SinDerivar 4.0 Internacional.http://dx.doi. org/10.22305/ict-unpa.v8i2.174 Aspect-Oriented Framework of Automatic Data Collection for the Evaluation of Usability in Web ApplicationsRoberto Farias, Sandra Casas {rfarias, scasas}@unpa.edu .ar Grupo de I+D en Ingeniería de Software Pragmática Instituto de Tecnología Aplicada -Unidad Académica Río Gallegos Universidad Nacional de la Patagonia AustralAbstract: The Usability consists of a set of attributes that allow evaluating the user effort to perform a certain task through the use of a specific software. Therefore, a software application is considered usable when it requires the least possible effort.Actually, the World Wide Web, has become in a great repository of information that is presented and offers to users through various websites or pages whose purpose is to ensure access to information and thus, ensure equality of opportunities. On the other hand, the evolution of the technologies, that support it, ...
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