=Paper=
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|id=Vol-407/paper-3
|storemode=property
|title=Usability Promotion in a Technical Project with Sparse Resources - a Case Study
|pdfUrl=https://ceur-ws.org/Vol-407/paper3.pdf
|volume=Vol-407
|dblpUrl=https://dblp.org/rec/conf/iused/KarppinenL08
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==Usability Promotion in a Technical Project with Sparse Resources - a Case Study==
https://ceur-ws.org/Vol-407/paper3.pdf
Usability Promotion in a Technical Project
with Sparse Resources – a Case Study
Kaarina Karppinen Marja Liinasuo
VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland
Kaitoväylä 1, PO Box 1100 Vuorimiehentie 3, Espoo, P.O. Box 1000
FI-90571 Oulu, Finland FI-02044 VTT, Finland
+358 40 5487 058 +358 400 912711
kaarina.karppinen@vtt.fi marja.liinasuo@vtt.fi
ABSTRACT both directions [3]. Either way, the easily neglected fact is that
In this paper, we describe how the usability of software the usability of the tool is not only about the interface but also
functionalities are promoted and evaluated during the design phase depends on other attributes rooted deeper in the character of the
of a software project developing security-related functionalities in a tool, e.g. the tasks it performs,.
middleware. The paper describes our work-in-progress in GEMOM Middleware is a specific type of computer software that
project, challenges faced in the beginning of the project, and our plan connects various software components or applications together.
to overcome those challenges with a clearly defined usability Typically other applications are conceived as users of a
implementation plan. middleware, and it has no direct human users, except for
systems specialists or the like who usually install and maintain
Categories and Subject Descriptors complex IT systems. Hence, usability in a middleware system
D.2.9 [Software Engineering]: Management – Software quality development is harder to promote than of applications which
assurance (SQA). have a direct interface towards a human user. As a consequence,
the lack of “proper” users and the tradition of software
development methodologies, which may see a user only as a
General Terms means to elicit requirements, easily results in software
Design, Human Factors development without any usability perspective. In the ongoing
GEMOM project these obstacles are planned to be prevailed and
Keywords one of the project’s aims is better usability of the end product
software design, usability, scenarios, acceptability without risking the security of it; a task that is proved to be hard
to perform [4].
1. INTRODUCTION
The usability of a software product is becoming a widely recognised 2. OVERCOMING THE CHALLENGES
quality attribute in software development [1]. However, the FOR USABILITY
conception of usability realised in projects is often quite narrow and, GEMOM (Genetic Message Oriented Secure Middleware) is a
pertaining software design, restricted to attributes that are conceived recently launched research project, lasting for 2½ years, that is
as becoming topical to produce only in the later phases of software co-funded by the European Commission and involves ten
development. Anyhow, no effective product can be designed without industry and research partners across Europe [5]. GEMOM is
taking into account also the “soft” human and context-related developing a prototype of a secure, self-organizing and resilient
complexities, broadly speaking human factors, already in the messaging platform, which enables reliable message sourcing
beginning of the system development. and delivery in applications.
Furthermore, in the Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) community, In GEMOM, five case studies, where the new PS-MOM
software usability has primarily been concerned with the (Publish-Subscribe variant of Message Oriented Middleware)
presentation of information, more precisely with user interface [2]. will be used, are defined. Each case study represents a different
User interface can denote the visible part of the system and, less application area with diverse demands on security and usability;
frequently, the interaction part of the system, i.e., the coordination of hence, no common definitions can be produced.
the information exchange between the end user and the system in
2.1 Defining the Challenges
Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for The challenges concerning usability promotion within the
personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are project included several issues: usability was to be promoted in
not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that a deeply technical project and among technically oriented
copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. To copy project members; the task for usability was not clearly defined;
otherwise, or republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, the focus of the work, which is the development of a
requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. middleware, lacked direct end users; and additionally, a very
limited amount of person months were allocated for human
I-USED’08, September 24, 2008, Pisa, Italy
factor studies, thus excluding the possibility of a usability
specialist to e.g. interview or lead workshops in various countries by 1. Case study representatives are to define and describe who
herself. are the users affected by the functioning of the middleware
in their case study.
This working context resulted in two practical questions, involving
also some matters of principle, with no direct answer for the usability 2. Technical experts are to describe the technical solutions
expert participating in a pre-defined project. Firstly, how to motivate from the perspective of the users, i.e. the effect of the
usability studies in a project without direct end users? Secondly, how solution as can be perceived by the human users.
to perform usability studies with sparse resources? 3. Leader of each case study is to produce the scenarios with
the users. For that purpose, a description about the
2.2 Creating Motivation functionalities from the human point of view is provided..
The first problem to be solved was the motivation for usability
studies, related with the problem of having no direct end users for a 4. The case study leaders are to send the scenarios to the
middleware. Hence, the eventual end users as well as the outline of a usability expert who will check their meaningfulness and
plan for usability promotion had to be defined. return the checked and possibly corrected scenarios with
focused questions related with each scenario.
In order to clarify the definition of a user in our project, we started
5. Users in each case study are to answer the questions, and
by creating a more detailed picture about the various users. The
the answers will be sent to the usability expert who will
preliminary version of users was based on the usage distance
analyse them and produce a report about user acceptance.
between the user and the middleware. Three levels of users were
found: (1) users that were provided some IT-related service, being So far, after having finished the first step of the process,
the furthest away from the middleware; (2) users that provided the challenges have mainly been related with the understanding of
service in question; and finally (3) users that maintained the software terms that have different meanings in HCI and SE (Software
providing the service, including the middleware, and thus being Engineering) approaches. Hence, special care has been taken
situated closest to the system. when discussing about users or scenarios in this project. “User”
means human users for HCI but may mean applications for SE.
The predefined project plan stated that user acceptance shall be “Scenario” in turn denotes short stories describing relatively
obtained with the help of scenarios; the new technical solutions freely working process from the human user’s viewpoint in HCI
would be interpreted into scenarios of usage, which would then be [e.g. 6], compared with the system description that is more
evaluated with the users. This way user acceptance, i.e. the worth of technically oriented in SE [e.g. 7].
the technical solutions planned to be realised, as experienced by the
future users, could be found out. With no user interface to evaluate, a This paper describes a work-in-progress, and more will be
reasonable choice was to concentrate on the functionalities of the learned when the project is progressing.
middleware as seen by the human user. This choice was also
meaningful regarding the method chosen, as it is easier to describe 4. REFERENCES
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