A framework to identify primitives that represent usability within Model-Driven Development methods

Abstract

Context: Nowadays, there are sound methods and tools which implement the Model-Driven Develop-ment approach (MDD) satisfactorily. However, MDD approaches focus on representing and generating code that represents functionality, behaviour and persistence, putting the interaction, and more specifically the usability, in a second place. If we aim to include usability features in a system developed with a MDD tool, we need to extend manually the generated code. Objective: This paper tackles how to include functional usability features (usability recommendations strongly related to system functionality) in MDD through conceptual primitives. Method: The approach consists of studying usability guidelines to identify usability properties that can be represented in a conceptual model. Next, these new primitives are the input for a model compiler that generates the code according to the characteristics expressed in them. An empirical study with 66 subjects was conducted to study the effect of including functional usability features regarding end users' satisfaction and time to complete tasks. Moreover, we have compared the workload of two MDD analysts including usability features by hand in the generated code versus including them through conceptual primitives according to our approach. Results: Results of the empirical study shows that after including usability features, end users' satisfac-tion improves while spent time does not change significantly. This justifies the use of usability features in the software development process. Results of the comparison show that the workload required to adapt the MDD method to support usability features through conceptual primitives is heavy. However, once MDD supports these features, MDD analysts working with primitives are more efficient than MDD analysts implementing these features manually. Conclusion: This approach brings us a step closer to conceptual models where models represent not only functionality, behaviour or persistence, but also usability features.

An MDD‐based method for building context‐aware applications with high reusability

“…At the same time, various forms of Generative Programming have been explored, such as MDD and aspect‐oriented programming, aiming primarily at improving the programmers' productivity and enabling code reuse. MDD was introduced with its proponents arguing that it “distinguishes between conceptual models (where analysts work) and the code that implements the system (which can be generated with as much automation as possible from the conceptual model).” Naturally, this is the primary benefit we are also claiming for the proposed plug‐in‐based method presented in this paper.…”

Usability improvement through A/B testing and refactoring

“…Among the approaches aimed at incorporating usability at early stages of development there are proposals to integrate Functional Usability Features (FUF) as primitives in Model Driven Development (MDD) methods (Panach et al 2015). There are also several efforts to combine User Centered Design (UCD) with agile methods, since both processes are user-centered and iterative (Silva da Silva et al 2011;Jurca et al 2014).…”

Design and programming patterns for implementing usability functionalities in web applications

“…One of the approaches (Carvajal et al, 2014) proposes guidelines for developers to incorporate FUFs into each development process activity from the requirements elicitation to the design stages. The second approach (Panach et al, 2014) is an extension of Juristo et al's research for model-driven development (MDD). Their aim is to build usability functionalities into software products developed using MDD.…”