Abstract:
Stakeholder involvement is an essential part of Value-Based Software Engineering. A critical part of the software engineering life cycle concerns usability testing. System usability refers to the effectiveness, efficiency, and satisfaction with which users can use the system for their relevant tasks. Unfortunately stakeholder involvement in usability testing is costly and challenging to organize. This chapter presents a repeatable collaborative usability testing process supported by a Group Support System that was developed and evaluated in a series of workshops involving a real system. The results show that the collaborative usability testing process facilitates stakeholder involvement through stakeholder expectation management, visualization and tradeoff analysis, prioritization of usability action items, the use of advanced groupware tools, and a simple business case analysis. Furthermore, the process can be considered productive and stakeholders reported substantial levels of satisfaction with it.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Argyris, C., Putnam, R., MacLain Smith, D.: Action science. (Jossey-Bass, San Francisco 2004)
Bevan, N., Macleod, M.: Usability measurement in context. Behavior and Information Technology. 13(1&2), pp 132–145 (1994)
Boehm, B. W.: Value-Based Software Engineering. Software Engineering Notes. 28(2), pp 1–12 (2003)
Boehm, B. W., Grünbacher, P., Briggs, R.O.: Developing Groupware for Requirements Negotiation: Lessons Learned. IEEE Software. 18(3), pp 46–55 (2001)
Briggs, R.O, Vreede, G.J. de, Nunamaker, J.F. Jr.: Collaboration engineering with thinkLets to pursue sustained success with Group Support Systems. Journal of MIS. 19(4), pp 31–63 (2003)
Briggs, R.O., Vreede, G.J. de, Reinig, B.A.: A Theory and Measurement of Meeting Satisfaction. In: Proceedings of the 37th Hawaiian International Conference on System Sciences, ed by Sprague, R.H. Jr. (IEEE Computer Society Press, Los Alamitos 2003), pp 25–32
Checkland, P.B.: Systems thinking, systems practice. (Wiley, Chichester 1981)
Davison, R.M., Briggs, R.O.: GSS for Presentation Support. Communications of the ACM. 43(9), pp 91–97 (2000)
Dean, D.L., Lee, J.D., Pendergast, M.O., Hickey, A.M., Nunamaker, J.F. Jr.: Enabling the effective involvement of multiple users: methods and tools for collaborative software engineering. Journal of Management Information Systems. 14(3), pp 179–222 (1998)
Ellis, C.A., Gibbs, S.J., Rein, G.L.: Groupware: Some issues and experiences. Communications of the ACM. 34(1), pp 38–58 (1991)
Fjermestad, J., Hiltz, S.R.: An assessment of group support systems experimental research: Methodology and results. Journal of Management Information Systems. 15(3), pp 7–149 (1998)
Fruhling, A., Lee, S.: Examining HCI usability factors affecting consumers’ trust in e-health services. In: Proceedings of the Hawaii International Conferences on Computer Sciences, ed by Gregson, T., Yang, D., Burg, E. (Hawaii International Conferences on Computer Sciences, ISSN #1545-6722 2004), pp 141–158
Genuchten, M. van, Dijk, C. van, Scholten, H., Vogel, D.: Using group support systems for software inspections. IEEE Software. 18(3), pp 60–65 (2001)
Griffith, T., Fuller, M., Northcraft, G.: Facilitator Influence in GSS. Information Systems Research. 9(1), pp 20–36 (1998)
Grohowski, R., McGoff, C., Vogel, D., Martz, B., and Nunamaker, J.F. Jr.: Implementing electronic meeting systems at IBM: Lessons learned and success factors. MIS Quarterly. 14(4), pp 327–345 (1990)
Grünbacher, P., Halling, M., Biffl, S., Kitapci, H., Boehm, B. W.: Integrating Collaborative Processes and Quality Assurance Techniques: Experiences from Requirements Negotiation. Journal of Management Information Systems. 20(4), pp 9–29 (2004)
Grünbacher, P., Halling, M., and Biffl, S.: An empirical study on groupware support for software inspection meetings. In: Proceedings of 18th IEEE International Conference on Automated Software Engineering, Montreal, Canada, (IEEE CS Press, Los Alamitos 2003), pp 4–11
Hammontree, M., Weiler, P., Nayak, N.: Remote Usability Testing. Interactions. July. 1(3), pp 21–25 (1994)
Jacobson, I., Christerson, M., Jonsson, P., Overgaard, G.: Object-Oriented Software Engineering-A Use Case Driven Approach. (Addison-Wesley, Harlow, UK 1992)
Jeffries, R., Miller, J.R., Wharton, C., Uyeda, K.M.: User interface evaluation in the real world. Communications of the ACM. 44(3), pp 199–124 (1991)
Kolfschoten, G.L, Briggs, R.O., Appelman, J.H., Vreede, G.J. de: ThinkLets as Building Blocks for Collaboration Processes: A Further Conceptualization. In: Proceedings of CRIWG2004, ed by Vreede, G.J. de, Guerrero, L., Marin, G., Costa Rica, Lecture Notes in Computer Science vol 3198 (Springer, Berlin Heidelberg New York 2004)
Lecerof, A., Paterno, F.: Automatic support for usability evaluation. IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering. 24: pp 863–887 (1998)
Lockwood, L.: Collaborative Usability Inspections: Finding Usability Defects Efficiently and Cost-Effectively. In: Proceedings of the 2004 Usability Professionals’ Association Conf. (2004)
Lowry, P., Roberts, T.: Improving the usability evaluation technique, heuristic evaluation, through the use of collaborative software. In: Proceedings of the 9 th Americas Conference on Information Systems (AMCIS). 2203–2211 (2003)
Mayhew, D.J.: The Usability Engineering Lifecycle (Morgan Kaufman, San Francisco 1999)
Muller, M., Matheson, L., Page, C., Gallup, R.: Participatory Heuristic Evaluation. Interactions. September-October, pp 13–18 (1998)
Newman, W.M., Lamming, M.G.: Interactive system design (Addison-Wesley, Cambridge, MA 1995)
Niederman, F., Beise, C.M., Beranek, P.M.: Issues and Concerns about Computer-Supported Meetings: The Facilitator’s Perspective. MIS Quarterly. 20(1), pp 1–22 (1996)
Nielsen, J.: Usability Engineering (Academic Press, New York 1993)
Nielsen, J., Mack, R.: Usability inspection methods (Wiley, New York 1994)
Nielsen, J., Molich, R.: Teaching user interface design based on usability engineering. ACM SIGCHI Bulletin. 21(1), pp 45–48 (1990)
Nunamaker, J., Dennis, A., Valacich, J., Vogel, D., George, J.: Electronic Meeting Systems to Support Group Work. Communications of the ACM. 34(7), pp 40–61 (1991)
Nunamaker, J.F. Jr., Briggs, R.O., Mittleman, D., Vogel, D., Balthazard, P.A.: Lessons from a Dozen Years of Group Support Systems Research: A Discussion of Lab and Field Findings. Journal of MIS. 13(3), pp 163–207 (1997)
Post, B.Q.: A Business Case Framework for Group Support Technology. Journal of MIS. 9(3), pp 7–26 (1993)
Rubin, J.: Handbook of Usability Testing (Wiley, New York 1994)
Vreede, G.J. de, Briggs, R.O.: Collaboration Engineering: Designing Repeatable Processes for High-Value Collaborative Tasks. In: Proceedings of the 38th Hawaiian International Conference on System Sciences, ed by Sprague, R.H. Jr. (IEEE CS Press, Los Alamitos 2005) p 17c
Vreede, G.J. de, Bruijn, H. de: Exploring the Boundaries of Successful GSS Application: Supporting Inter-Organizational Policy Networks. DataBase. 30(3-4), pp 111–131 (1999)
Vreede, G.J. de, G.W. Dickson: Using GSS to Support Designing Organizational Processes and Information Systems: An Action Research Study on Collaborative Business Engineering. Group Decision and Negotiation. 9(2), pp 161–183 (2000)
Vreede, G.J. de, Davison, R., Briggs, R.O.: How A Silver Bullet May Lose Its Shine-Learning from Failures with Group Support Systems. Communications of the ACM. 46(8), pp 96–101 (2003)
Vreede, G.J. de, Vogel, D.R., Kolfschoten, G., Wien, J.S.: Fifteen years of in-situ GSS use: A comparison across time and national boundaries. In: Proceedings of the 36th Hawaiian International Conference on System Sciences, ed by Sprague, R.H. Jr. (IEEE Computer Society Press, Los Alamitos 2003), pp 9–17
Whitefield, A., Wilson, F., Dowell, J.: A framework for human factors evaluation. Behavior and Information Technology. 10(1), pp 65–79 (1991)
Zuber-Skerritt, O.: Action research for change and development (Gower Publishing, Aldershot 1991)
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2006 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Fruhling, A., de Vreede, GJ. (2006). Collaborative Usability Testing to Facilitate Stakeholder Involvement. In: Biffl, S., Aurum, A., Boehm, B., Erdogmus, H., Grünbacher, P. (eds) Value-Based Software Engineering. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/3-540-29263-2_10
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/3-540-29263-2_10
Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg
Print ISBN: 978-3-540-25993-0
Online ISBN: 978-3-540-29263-0
eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)