Applying the Usability Engineering Lifecycle in Tool Development

1. Applying the Usability Engineering Lifecycle in Tool Development VT SENRGWill Humphries & Kim Gausepohl 12/04/07 2:50-3:20PM

2. Presentation Objectives • Share our experience integrating the usability engineering lifecycle into tool development • Convince you that: • The inclusion of usability engineering will improve the overall SAKAI user experience • You can do it too! 2

3. Presentation Outline • VT SAKAI Background • Importance of Requirements Engineering • Usability Engineering Lifecycle • VT SENRG Project 3

4. VT Sakai Background • Community Involvement • development • QA • Mellon Award • 2005 Pilot & 2006 Production • Usability complaints 4

5. Situational Analysis 5

6. Situational Analysis • Immediate project needs: • Stakeholder group • Grad student: Usability • Grad student: Developer 6

7. Requirements Engineering Figure 1: Increase in cost to fix or change software throughout the lifecycle Boehm, B. W. (1989). Verifying and validating software requirements and design specifications. In Software risk management (pp. 205-218): IEEE Press. 7

8. What is Usability? • the extent to which a product can be used by specified users to achieve specified goals with effectiveness, efficiency, and satisfaction in a specified context of use. ISO 9241-11 (1988) . 8

9. Usability Engineering Lifecycle Hix and Hartson (1993). Developing User Interfaces: Ensuring Usability Through Product and Process. New York: John Wiley & Sons, Inc. 9

10. SENRG • Sakai Electronic Notebook for Research and Groupwork • Motivation: Helpdesk requests • High level goals: • replacement for paper lab and classroom notebooks • improved collaboration 10

11. Systems Analysis • Stakeholder Group Formation • 7 faculty from science, engineering, and humanities domains • Ethnographic approaches • Interviews • Field Visits • Stakeholder meeting to determine high level requirements and priorities 11

12. Interviews & Field Visits • Example Interview Questions • What is purpose of notebook? • How do you measure the quality of a notebook? • How do you manage notebooks? • Who is responsible for the notebook? • What complaints do you have about your current use of notebooks? • Field visits • Artifacts • Context of use

13. User Interaction Design • Screen Mock-ups • Individual stakeholder meetings • Obtain feedback on paper prototypes • Ask follow-up questions 13

14. Initial Screen Mock-Up 14

15. After Several Iterations 15

16. Prototype Development • Development in RSF • Interface development switched to XHTML • FCKEditor used for text entry

17. Prototype Prototype screenshot here I’m waiting on a build at the end of the weekend 17

18. Evaluation • Interactive Prototype • 10 student participants • Engineering • Benchmark tasks • Critical incidents • Time to complete task • Comments • Qualitative survey for user satisfaction 18

19. Evaluation Results Use evaluation to inform design 19

20. Post-test Interview Sampling of the negative • Feedback should be prominent at every stage to understand the task flow • Entering section name is not obvious • Use better labels Sampling of the positive • It is not tough to use. Its better than Scholar • This system is much better than Scholar 20

21. What’s Next? • Design changes based on usability results • Development of high priority features informed by faculty feedback 21

22. Lessons Learned • Rapport with stakeholders is key • Stakeholder involvement creates “buy-in” • Conflicting requirements ~= conflicting stakeholders • Start recruiting participants early, especially students 22

23. Contact Information • Will Humphries • whumphri@vt.edu • Kim Gausepohl • kgausepo@vt.edu 23

24. References Boehm, B. W. (1989). Verifying and validating software requirements and design specifications. In Software risk management (pp. 205-218): IEEE Press. Hix and Hartson (1993). Developing User Interfaces: Ensuring Usability Through Product and Process. New York: John Wiley & Sons, Inc. 24