Training software developers and designers to conduct usability evaluations

Abstract

Many efforts to improve the interplay between usability evaluation and software development rely either on better methods for conducting usability evaluations or on better formats for presenting evaluation results in ways that are useful for software designers and developers. Both of these approaches depend on a complete division of work between developers and evaluators. This article takes a different approach by exploring whether software developers and designers can be trained to conduct their own usability evaluations. The article is based on an empirical study where 36 teams with a total of 234 first-year university students on software development and design educations were trained through an introductory course in user-based website usability testing that was taught in 40 h. They used the techniques from this course for planning, conducting, and interpreting the results of a usability evaluation of an interactive website. They gained good competence in conducting the evaluation, defining user tasks and producing a usability report, while they were less successful in acquiring skills for identifying and describing usability problems.

Keywords:

• usability
• user-based evaluation
• training of software developers
• dissemination of usability skills
• empirical study

Acknowledgements

This research was supported in part by the Danish Research Councils under grant number 2106-04-0022. The authors thank the students for their participation in the study. They are also grateful to the comments from the anonymous reviewers.