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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
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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},
}
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