Empirical usability testing in a component-based environment : improving test efficiency with component-specific usability measures

W.P. Brinkman, R. Haakma, D.G. Bouwhuis

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingConference contributionAcademicpeer-review

6 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

This paper addresses the issue of usability testing in a component-based software engineering environment, specifically measuring the usability of different versions of a component in a more powerful manner than other, more holistic, usability methods. Three component-specific usability measures are presented: an objective performance measure, a perceived ease-of-use measure, and a satisfaction measure. The objective performance measure is derived from the message exchange between components recorded in a log file, whereas the other measures are obtained through a questionnaire. The power of the measures was studied in an experimental setting. Eight different prototypes of a mobile telephone were subjected to usability tests, in which 80 subjects participated. Analyses of the statistical power of these measures show that the component-specific performance measure can be more powerful than overall usability measures, which means fewer users are needed in a test.
Original languageEnglish
Title of host publicationEngineering Human Computer Interaction and Interactive Systems: Joint Working Conferences EHCI-DSVIS 2004
EditorsR. Bastide, P. Palanque, J. Roth
Place of PublicationBerlin
PublisherSpringer
Pages20-37
ISBN (Print)978-3-540-26097-4
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 2005

Publication series

NameLecture Notes in Computer Science
Volume3425
ISSN (Print)0302-9743

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