The Impact of Usability Reports and User Test Observations on Developers' Understanding of Usability Data: An Exploratory Study

Høegh, Rune Thaarup; Nielsen, Christian Monrad; Overgaard, Michael; Pedersen, Michael; Stage, Jan

doi:10.1207/s15327590ijhc2102_4

Cited by 33 publications

(29 citation statements)

References 26 publications

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“…Because the content of these lists provides the most direct information about how to improve usability, developers have an intense interest in them (Capra, 2007;Høegh, Nielsen, Overgaard, Pedersen, & Stage, 2006;Nørgaard & Hornbaek, 2009). There are, however, different approaches to the construction of usability recommendations and to their prioritization.…”

Section: Lessons Yet To Be Learnedmentioning

confidence: 99%

Usability: Lessons Learned … and Yet to Be Learned

Lewis¹

2014

International Journal of Human-Computer Interaction

242

129

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The philosopher of science J. W. Grove (1989) once wrote, "There is, of course, nothing strange or scandalous about divisions of opinion among scientists. This is a condition for scientific progress" (p. 133). Over the past 30 years, usability, both as a practice and as an emerging science, has had its share of controversies. It has inherited some from its early roots in experimental psychology, measurement, and statistics. Others have emerged as the field of usability has matured and extended into user-centered design and user experience. In many ways, a field of inquiry is shaped by its controversies. This article reviews some of the persistent controversies in the field of usability, starting with their history, then assessing their current status from the perspective of a pragmatic practitioner. Put another way: Over the past three decades, what are some of the key lessons we have learned, and what remains to be learned? Some of the key lessons learned are:• When discussing usability, it is important to distinguish between the goals and practices of summative and formative usability. • There is compelling rational and empirical support for the practice of iterative formative usability testing-it appears to be effective in improving both objective and perceived usability. • When conducting usability studies, practitioners should use one of the currently available standardized usability questionnaires. • Because "magic number" rules of thumb for sample size requirements for usability tests are optimal only under very specific conditions, practitioners should use the tools that are available to guide sample size estimation rather than relying on "magic numbers."

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Section: Lessons Yet To Be Learnedmentioning

confidence: 99%

Usability: Lessons Learned … and Yet to Be Learned

Lewis¹

2014

International Journal of Human-Computer Interaction

242

129

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“…To apply the affordances in a product development process, designers should catch how users perceive the product's functions with their tasks. Methods such as interviews, questionnaires, and ethnographic observations for product uses can be utilized to understand the formation of task trees and FTIMs from users' stands (Hoegh, Nielsen, Overgaard, Pedersen, & Stage, 2006; van Velsen, van der Geest, & Klaassen, 2011).…”

Section: Comprehension and Formation Of Interaction Components Betweementioning

confidence: 99%

User Behavior Model Based on Affordances and Emotions: A New Approach for an Optimal Use Method in Product–User Interactions

Lee

2014

International Journal of Human-Computer Interaction

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This study proposes a new approach to developing a user behavior model to explain how a user finds the optimal use. This is achieved by considering user concerns, task significances, affordances, and emotional responses as the interaction components and by exploring behavior sequences for a goal in using a product the first time. The tasks in the same group at each level in the user concern structure are therefore in a competing relationship in going up to a higher task. The task tree with the significances and the affordance probabilities can be analyzed. The order of a user's exploring behavior sequences can be determined through comparisons of the expected significances, which can be obtained by the modified subjective expected utility theory. A user's emotional responses for the tasks that a behavior sequence is composed of can be calculated by the modified decision affect theory. Here, the emotional response refers to a user's internal reactions for the degree to which a product's affordance features can meet his or her mental model in use. The average emotional response for a behavior sequence can be a user's decisional factor for the optimal use method in using a product with a goal. Also, the design problems of a product can be checked from users' point of view, and the emotional losses/changes by usage failures can be discussed. For an illustrative purpose, the proposed model is applied to a numerical example with some assumptions.

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“…A study conducted by Høegh and colleagues supports this by showing that developers' awareness of usability problems was increased after they observed sessions of user tests (Høegh et al 2006). A reason for the increased awareness was that the observations of user tests provided firsthand experiences of how the system was applied in the real world by real users (Høegh et al 2006). Involvement can also go beyond observation, e.g.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 98%

Training software development practitioners in usability testing

Bruun

Stage

2012

Proceedings of the 24th Australian Computer-Human Interaction Conference

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Previous studies show that some software development practitioners without a usability background experience difficulties in understanding users and accepting that usability problems exist in their software. Also they do not prioritize fixing the problems identified by specialists. This barrier is denoted "developer mindset" and this paper empirically explores whether the barrier can be overcome by training software development practitioners to conduct usability testing. Findings show that the practitioners obtained considerable abilities in identifying usability problems as they managed to uncover 80.5 % of these after 30 hours of training, which shows a high level of acceptance. Findings also reveal that the practitioners prioritized fixing 61 % of the problems and we found that they successfully removed 64 % in a new interface design. We conclude that this approach may pose a viable solution to overcome the barrier of developer mindset.

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The Impact of Usability Reports and User Test Observations on Developers' Understanding of Usability Data: An Exploratory Study

Cited by 33 publications

References 26 publications

Usability: Lessons Learned … and Yet to Be Learned

Usability: Lessons Learned … and Yet to Be Learned

User Behavior Model Based on Affordances and Emotions: A New Approach for an Optimal Use Method in Product–User Interactions

Training software development practitioners in usability testing

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