Home // ICDS 2014, The Eighth International Conference on Digital Society // View article
Authors:
Fulvio Llizano
Jan Stage
Keywords: Usability evaluations; remote synchronous testing method; integration of usability evaluation in software development projects; field study
Abstract:
Although Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) techniques, as usability evaluations, are considered strategic in software development, there are diverse economic and practical constraints in their application. The integration of these tests into software projects must consider practical and cost-effective methods such as, for instance, the remote synchronous testing method. This paper presents results from a field study in which we compared this method with the classic laboratory-based think-aloud method in a realistic software development context. Our interest in this study was to explore the performance of the remote synchronous testing method in a realistic context. The results show that the remote synchronous testing method allows the identification of a similar number of usability problems achieved by conventional methods at a usability lab. Additionally, the time spent using remote synchronous testing is significantly less. Results obtained in this study also allowed us to infer that, by using the remote synchronous testing method, it is possible to handle some practical constraints that limit the integration of usability evaluations into software development projects. In this sense, the relevance of the paper is based on the positively impact that remote synchronous testing could have in the digital accessibility of the software, by allowing extensive use of usability evaluation practices into software development projects.
Pages: 74 to 79
Copyright: Copyright (c) IARIA, 2014
Publication date: March 23, 2014
Published in: conference
ISSN: 2308-3956
ISBN: 978-1-61208-324-7
Location: Barcelona, Spain
Dates: from March 23, 2014 to March 27, 2014