Training software development practitioners in usability testing: an assessment acceptance and prioritization

Authors:
Anders Bruun;Jan Stage
Affiliations:
Aalborg University, Selma Lagerlöfs Vej, Aalborg;Aalborg University, Selma Lagerlöfs Vej, Aalborg
Venue:
Proceedings of the 24th Australian Computer-Human Interaction Conference
Year:
2012

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Abstract

Previous studies show that some software development practitioners without a usability background experience difficulties in understanding users and accepting that usability problems exist in their software. Also they do not prioritize fixing the problems identified by specialists. This barrier is denoted "developer mindset" and this paper empirically explores whether the barrier can be overcome by training software development practitioners to conduct usability testing. Findings show that the practitioners obtained considerable abilities in identifying usability problems as they managed to uncover 80.5% of these after 30 hours of training, which shows a high level of acceptance. Findings also reveal that the practitioners prioritized fixing 61% of the problems and we found that they successfully removed 64% in a new interface design. We conclude that this approach may pose a viable solution to overcome the barrier of developer mindset.