The growth in the number of nondeveloper open source software oss application users has drawn attention to usability in the oss community. Accessibility guidelines for application software development. In this podcast, kate ambrose sereno and naomi anderson discuss. In this respect, usability in open source software is no different than in proprietary software. Adapting usability techniques for application in open. A usability maturity model for open source software by. Furthermore apache is most usable and standard software that is using for the.
The impact of formal qa practices on floss communities. Assuring quality and usability in open source software development. An open source usability maturity model osumm computers. Open source software shares an effective and simple development model, which grows on the basis of a community of developers who share their application codes, leading to expansion of this concept in software usability. Hedberg, henrik, iivari, netta, rajanen, mikko, harjumaa, lasse 2007. Successful usability testing in open source software projects. How to incorporate a usability technique in the open. General assumptions do not favor a positive relationship between the existing. Open source software development processes, lack of average user involvement, and the culture of open source communities restrict usability in open source projects 17.
We also point out limitations in the existing research and suggest paths for future work. Usability can be described as the capacity of a system to provide a condition for its users to perform the tasks safely, effectively, and efficiently while enjoying the experience. We call on all usability ux interaction experts to join us and further explore the open traits of foss. In the 1st international workshop on emerging trends in floss research and development, floss, ieee computer society, washington, dc, 2007, may 2026. This thesis deals with the quality of open source software oss for short and different questions.
Assuring quality and usability in open source software development h hedberg, n iivari, m rajanen, l harjumaa first international workshop on emerging trends in floss research and, 2007. Quality assurance is responsible for ensuring the quality in the project. Usability testing for open source software projects doesnt need to be performed in a stuffy lab environment. Moreover, it is not limited to a set of development. The unlimited number of opensource software oss users and the importance of end users experience in determining software quality make usability an even more critical quality attribute for oss than it is for proprietary software. Harjumaa, assuring quality and usability in open source software development, in proceedings of the 1st international workshop on emerging trends in floss. Its a way for companies and individuals to collaborate around shared needs on a product that none of them could achieve alone or, in and of itself, does not constitute a key business differentiator. Its a way for companies and individuals to collaborate around.
Though the combination of the two is a newer phenomenon. It runs on a wide variety of platforms and provides fulltext mirroring, indexing, searching, browsing and metadata extraction. Abstract open source is becoming an increasingly popular software development method. Usability bugs in opensource software and online forums. The impact of formal qa practices on floss communities the. Prior to the emergence of open source software oss quality models, the mccall, dromey and iso 9126 models were already in existence miguel et al. May 14, 2017 the growth in the number of nondeveloper open source software oss application users has drawn attention to usability in the oss community. Measuring and tracking quality factors in free and open. Bringing usercentered design to open source software development methods. The open source software oss development context has gained increasing interest in information systems is research in recent years c. The usability topics are user interaction design, usability testing, usability inspection methods including heuristic evaluation and cognitive walkthrough, cost and benefits of usability activities, and lastly, core human computer interaction philosophies. Deciding what to design 17652752 guest lecture claudia mullerbirn, cmu scs isr, 11182009 2. The unlimited number of opensource software oss users and the importance of end users experience in determining software quality make usability an even more critical quality attribute for oss than it is.
Take a look at what the role is and how its essential to the software development process. Free open source windows quality assurance software. Twidale open source communities have successfully developed a great deal of software although most computer users only use proprietary applications. When we started open usability in 2005, experienced usabilityux interaction experts were scarce. Thesis october 9, 2007 77 pages free software, open source software, foss, software quality, software metrics kumpula science library, serial number cfree and open source software foss has gained increased interest in the computer. Some oss communities nowadays do not have processes in place to. Usability is a controlled aspect of user experience design that ensures the enduser doesnt strain or encounter problems with the use of a product or websites user interface. Though the combination of the two is a newer phenomenon, there is as rich history for both usability and open source software in information systems research. User satisfaction has always been a major factor in the success of software, regardless of whether the software is closed proprietary or open source software oss. Usability and open source software development david m.
Bringing usercentered design to open source software. The usability of open source software is often regarded as one reason for this limited distribution. Applying a usability technique in the open source software. Assuring open source software february 2014 podcast kathryn ambrosesereno, naomi anderson interviewer suzanne miller. From the outset on, the development of open source software oss was. Participating in open source projects and communities is a way to build open standards as actual software, rather than paper documents. The future of research in freeopen source software. The usability topics are user interaction design, usability testing, usability inspection methods including heuristic evaluation and cognitive walkthrough. Twidale open source communities have successfully developed a great deal of software although most computer users. Usability and opensource software development request pdf. Annotated bibliography technology bibliographies cite. Assuring quality and usability in open source software development h hedberg, n iivari, m rajanen, l harjumaa emerging trends in floss research and development, 2007.
The case of open source software development 6 we define software development as comprising code contributions accepted by the community. Thesis october 9, 2007 77 pages free software, open source software, foss, software quality. Measuring and tracking quality factors in free and open source software projects computer science m. Quality and security of software are key factors in the software development.
Quality assurance is a great way to become a part of the software development process. In the late 1990s it seemed like billion dollar ipos were a guarantee just by saying your business had something to. The aim of this feature is to assure that is software proper for the. Usability is an important quality characteristic of software products and systems.
Greenstone greenstone is an opensource software system for building, maintaining and serving digital library collections 10. Usability is often ignored in open source software development. Jan, 20 with this quality model, we provide a common foundation for concepts related to software quality, enabling consistency and continuity of quality related information during software development. Bringing usercentered design to open source software development 1. The decentralized and engineeringdriven approach of open source projects can be at odds with c. Adoption of the focus groups technique in the open source. Proceeding of the first international workshop on emerging trends in floss research and development, 2007, minneapolis, usa. Oss communities do not generally know how to apply usability techniques and are unclear about which techniques to use in each activity of the development process. Assuring quality and usability in open source software development, in.
A user experience designer can control accessibility, user interface, information architecture and usability to suit the uncontrolled aspects like goals, user lifestyle and habits. Factors influencing software quality in oss development the participation of. View of the usability of open source software first monday. Nov 30, 2009 bringing usercentered design to open source software development 1. In this type of oss development, the naive, non computer professional users should be taken into account and. Opensource software developers can apply a variety of methods, although the ideal would be to. Assuring quality and usability in open source software.
The research model of this study establishes the relationship between usability errors in oss and online public forums. Understanding software quality assurance in open source. General assumptions do not favor a positive relationship between the existing open source development model and good usability due to a host of social context reasons. Usability and opensource software development david m.
Applying usability costbenefit analysis explorations in. For example, the open source web content management system drupal streamed testers desktops as they undertook a usability test. Open source software shares an effective and simple development model, which grows on the basis of a community of developers who share their application codes. Usability in open source software development an interpretive case study iivari, netta, department of information processing science, university of oulu, p. And with regards to this fact, the paper investigates the responsible actors in assuring quality in open source software development. The open source software oss development context has gained increasing.
Nevertheless, it has been emphasized that oss development results in increased security and quality, since the code is ex posed to extreme scrutiny. Aug 12, 2014 4 abstract there are lots of challenges confronting the open source software development, and one of the problems is quality assurance. The unlimited number of open source software oss users and the importance of end users experience in determining software quality make usability an even more critical quality attribute for oss than it is for proprietary software. Open source draws its origins and strength from a hacker culture oreilly, 1999. In the 1st international workshop on emerging trends in floss research and development, floss, ieee computer society, washington, dc.
Bringing usercentered design to open source software development. The approach to identify usability issues in opensource software, therefore, needs to be more structured. Usability testing in open source software did not simply spring from the void. Its not just the onebyone execution of test scripts. Proceeding of the first international workshop on emerging. With this quality model, we provide a common foundation for concepts related to software quality, enabling consistency and continuity of qualityrelated information during software. Evaluating open source software usability using a multistage. Working as a usability professional in the open source arena is a challenging task. Open source software oss, usability, empirical study, users, industry. Open source is a software development method that makes source code available to.
The emergence of quality assurance practices in freelibre open. Pdf assuring quality and usability in open source software. Understanding software quality assurance in open source software. This section includes requirements for the support for activated accessibility features or devices. Different approaches for introducing usability activities into sw development have not yet been evaluated with respect to. Different approaches for introducing usability activities into sw development have not yet been evaluated with respect to open source software oss.
Assuring quality and usability in open source software development 2007 first international workshop on emerging trends in floss research and development floss07. Harjumaa, assuring quality and usability in open source software development, in proceedings of the 1st international workshop on emerging trends in floss research and development, washington, dc, usa, may 2007. To read this external content in full, download the complete paper from the open online archives at the technical university of munich. With the emergence of all of these repositories, theres a lot. The usability of open source software research commons. The irony of it all is that as open source as an idea matures and grows farther away from its political roots, it is shaping the fabric of the development community and having a profound impact. Yasca is an open source program which looks for security vulnerabilities, codequality, performance, and conformance to best practices in program source code, integrating with other opensource tools as needed. Open sources profound impact on the development community. Usability of open source systems is becoming a relevant topic for investigation given the proliferation of open source software. Introducing usability activities into open source software. In this podcast, kate ambrose sereno and naomi anderson discuss research aimed at developing adoptable, evidencebased, datadriven approaches to evaluating open source software. Open source software oss has spread so swiftly that it now rivals commercial software systems in terms of deployment. These models however did not consider some quality attributes unique to oss such as communitya body of users and developers formed around oss who contribute to the software and popularize it haaland et al.
399 1225 1551 455 1426 997 728 165 902 171 373 1575 1077 1259 1312 1485 1054 960 952 379 599 375 884 1347 1475 448 916 1330 415 294 349 1345 728 146 594