Investigating the impact of usability on software architecture through scenarios: A case study on Web systems

  • Authors:

  • Tamer Rafla;Pierre N. Robillard;Michel Desmarais

  • Affiliations:

  • Software Engineering Research Lab, Ecole Polytechnique de Montreal, P.O. Box 6079, Station Centre-Ville, Montreal, QC, Canada H3C 3A7;Software Engineering Research Lab, Ecole Polytechnique de Montreal, P.O. Box 6079, Station Centre-Ville, Montreal, QC, Canada H3C 3A7;Software Engineering Research Lab, Ecole Polytechnique de Montreal, P.O. Box 6079, Station Centre-Ville, Montreal, QC, Canada H3C 3A7

  • Venue:
  • Journal of Systems and Software
  • Year:
  • 2006

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Abstract

Usability has primarily been served by separating the user interface from the remainder of the application. However, several researchers have recently determined that there is a direct relationship between architectural decisions and usability requirements. This leads us to conclude that more attention should be devoted to usability-driven architectural analysis methods. We present a case study, which involves adapting an existing software architecture analysis method (SAAM) for the purpose of deriving the interdependencies between architectural characteristics and usability requirements. More specifically, we investigate the impact on the architecture of implementing usability requirement changes. Potential design solutions that accommodate the corresponding usability mechanisms into the Web software architecture are presented, along with the rationale for applying them and the process by which they are obtained. We conclude by recommending how usability issues can be dealt with proactively during the design of the architecture, and explain the need to integrate those usability requirements into a software engineering process.