Back to publications

Rajanen, M., Iivari, N., Keskitalo, E. (2012) Introducing Usability Activities into Open Source Software Development Projects - a Participative Approach. In Proceedings of the 7th Nordic Conference on Human-Computer Interaction (NordiCHI 2012). Copenhagen, Denmark. pp 683-692. ISBN: 978-1-4503-1482-4, DOI: 10.1145/2399016.2399120

Links

Abstraxt

Usability is an important quality characteristic of software products and information systems. Different approaches for introducing usability activities into open source software (OSS) development have not yet been fully evaluated. This paper experiments with the introduction of usability activities into OSS development through a participative approach. An empirical case study was carried out in a game development OSS project. The results of this study suggest that it is beneficial to introduce usability activities into OSS development through the participative approach. In the participative approach the usability experts become recognized part of the development community through adapting their ways of work into the culture of the OSS project and submitting code patches. This participative approach had a clear impact in the case project as seen in changes in the user interface and in improved usability. The challenge of adapting usability and OSS development philosophies and practices should, however, be researched further.

Keywords

Open source software, Participative approach, Usability

BibTeX entry

@inproceedings{Rajanen2012NordiCHI,
 author = {Rajanen, Mikko and Iivari, Netta and Keskitalo, Eino},
 title = {Introducing usability activities into open source software 
development projects: a participative approach},
 booktitle = {NordiCHI '12: Proceedings of the 7th Nordic Conference on 
Human-Computer Interaction},
 year = {2012},
 isbn = {978-1-4503-1482-4},
 pages = {683--692},
 location = {Copenhagen, Denmark},
 doi = {http://doi.acm.org/10.1145/2399016.2399120},
 publisher = {ACM},
 address = {New York, NY, USA},
 keywords = {open source software, participative approach, usability},
 }



Back to publications