Characterizing Usability Inspection Methods through the Analysis of a Systematic Mapping Study Extension

Abstract


 
 
 Usability is one of the most relevant quality aspects in Web applications. A Web application is usable if it provides a friendly, direct and easy to understand interface. Many Usability Inspection Methods (UIMs) have been proposed as a cost effective way to enhance usability. However, many companies are not aware of these UIMs and consequently, are not using them. A secondary study can identify, evaluate and interpret all data that is relevant to the current knowledge available regarding UIMs that have been used to evaluate Web applications in the past few decades. Therefore, we have extended a systematic mapping study about Usability Evaluation Methods by analyzing 26 of its research papers from which we extracted and categorized UIMs. We provide practitioners and researches with the rationale to understand both the strengths and weaknesses of the emerging UIMs for the Web. Furthermore, we have summarized the relevant information of the UIMs, which suggested new ideas or theoretical basis regarding usability inspection in the Web domain. In addition, we present a new UIM and a tool for Web usability inspection starting from the results shown in this paper.
 
 

Practical Findings from Applying Innovative Design Usability Evaluation Technologies for Mockups of Web Applications

“…Despite the effort in evaluating the user interaction, navigability and engagement of Web applications early in the development, results from our previous work [14] showed that most of the proposed methods still required at least part of the application's source code in order to perform the evaluation. Furthermore, some of the methods can only be used to evaluate specific types of Web applications like medical, transactional and Web 2.0 [14].…”

“…Therefore, many inspection methods for guaranteeing user engagement and navigation quality in Web applications have been proposed [17]. In our previous work [14], we identified that despite their increasing number, most of these methods can only be applied late in the development process, mainly in the testing and deployment activities. The main drawback of evaluating user experience at those stages, is that the source code of the application will have already been written, increasing the cost of correcting any encountered user interaction problem [21].…”

“…The main drawback of evaluating user experience at those stages, is that the source code of the application will have already been written, increasing the cost of correcting any encountered user interaction problem [21]. Thus, the academy and industry have proposed specific inspection methods that can be used to identify user interaction problems in the beginning of the development process of Web applications [14].…”

“…Furthermore, some of the methods can only be used to evaluate specific types of Web applications like medical, transactional and Web 2.0 [14]. Also, the proposed tools did not assist inspectors in the identification of interaction problems [17].…”

“…It is possible to verify all these features by carrying out user interaction inspections, in which expert evaluators, or even the development team, can examine design, navigational and ease of use related aspects of a user interface [14].…”