Integrating User eXperience practices into software development processes: implications of the UX characteristics

Organizations are becoming increasingly concerned about software quality. In object-oriented (OO) systems, quality is characterized by measurements of internal quality attributes. An efficient and proper method to analyze software quality in the absence of fault-prone or defective data labels is cluster analysis. The aim of this paper is to find similarities among project structures by measuring characteristics of internal software quality. In a sample of 150 open-source software systems, we evaluated software using macro and micro categories. Results obtained using cluster analysis indicated that some domains such as Graphics, Games, and Development tend to have similarities in specialization, abstraction, stability, and complexity. These results exploit the ability of OO software metrics to find similar behavior across domains. The results provide an immediate view of the trends and characteristics of internal software quality of Java systems that need to be addressed so that software systems can continue to be maintainable.

Interactions between environmental sustainability goals and software product quality: A mapping study

Agile software development has proliferated over the last two decades and become one of the dominant frameworks used by software development companies. Agile development methods and User Experience (UX) both strive towards providing software that meets the users’ needs. The purpose of this study is twofold; firstly, to study the current literature and approaches of integrating UX into Agile software development with the intention of combining it into good development practices for use by Agile and UX practitioners. Secondly, to investigate how UX is integrated into Agile in the South African context thus confirming if literature from studies conducted abroad apply within the South African context. A review of the literature confirms that there are a significant number of publications on Agile software development from a South African perspective (Joseph and Santana 2016; Chiyangwa and Mnkandla 2017; Sebega and Mnkandla 2017; Mudarikwa and Grace 2018). However, there are no publications that have explored UX integration within an Agile software environment. Recent research attempts, such as those by Coleman (2018) and Brosens (2018), are evidence of the growing interest in UX; however, these studies do not provide a higher level of abstraction on Agile UX integration practices. This research presents results of a qualitative study on how UX and Agile can be integrated. UX cannot be quantified or adequately explained by using variables or experiments. The grounded theory research method has been used. It is qualitative in nature and the theory consists of iterative data collection and analysis with an aim of producing a theory. The results of this study highlighted approaches for increasing user involvement in Agile and good development practices to integrate UX into Agile. It also highlighted issues and challenges experienced. This research offers insight for UX/Agile practitioners and adds academic value in the form of a generic framework for the integration of UX into Agile. The framework has been developed through the lens of the Design Thinking paradigm.

UX information in the daily work of an agile team: A distributed cognition analysis

When multiple functionally-equivalent APIs are available from different providers within API economy, an application developer (as an API consumer) chooses one of them based on his/her sense of value. In this paper, we address an issue of how individual developers within API economy consider values of APIs. In general, an application developer benefits from an API provider by outsourcing a part of “work”' necessary for the application. Hence, the quality of the “work” done by the API significantly influences the value for the developer. Based on the fact, we propose a model that systematically analyzes values of API based on its quality. To cover various viewpoints of quality, we re-interpret the software quality model SQuaRE in the context of API economy, and derive quality characteristics relevant to API values. We also examine a method that quantifies the API value for a developer.

The support of software quality in a software development process may be regarded under two aspects: first, by providing techniques, which support the development of high quality software and second, by providing techniques, which assure the required quality attributes in existing artifacts. Both approaches have to be combined to achieve effective and successful software engineering.In this study, we compare three of the most industrially relevant software development process models (Rational Unified Process (RUP), Microsoft Solution Framework (MSF) and Extreme Programming (XP)) regarding their software quality support in terms of software quality development and software quality assurance. Based on the results we propose a de-facto standard for quality support in software development process models.

The software is created and constructed to address particular issues in the applied field. In this context, there is a need to be aware of the crucial characteristics to assess the quality of software. But not all software requires checking all the quality-of-service parameters, resulting in effort loss and time consumption. Therefore, it is required to develop software quality characteristics recommendation model to address and resolve the issue. The proposed work involved in this paper can be subdivided into three main parts (1) a review of popular software quality models and their comparison to create a complete set of predictable, and (2) the design of an ML-based recommendation model for recommending the software quality model and software quality characteristics (3) performance analysis. The proposed recommendation system utilizes the different software quality of service attributes as well as the software attributes where these models are suitably applied to satisfy the demands. Profiling of applications and their essential requirements have been performed Based on the different quality of service parameters and the requirements of applications. These profiles are learned by machine learning algorithms for distinguishing the application-based requirement and recommending the essential attributes. The implementation of the proposed technique has been done using Python technology. The simulation aims to demonstrate how to minimize the cost of software testing and improve time and accuracy by utilizing the appropriate quality matrix. Finally, a conclusion has been drawn and the future extension of the proposed model has been reported.

The vision of user experience is making life of users of products as convenient as possible, especially during the interaction with a productor a service. An important aspect of perceived convenience is the user experience of a product. The visual design and especially the interaction design has a major influence on this perception. In order to achieve the vision, user experience experts apply different types of tasks. One type of task is to analyze how users carry out tasks and what user's needs or problems are. Another type of task is to design user experience solutions and other typical task type deals with carrying out usability evaluations in order to find problems in using software application. In the course of user experience activities, many data are being collected. Many of the collected data relates to certain activities of users. For the user experience area there exist just a few tools, which support typical tasks in different ways. None of the tools supports linking results of user experience work to user experience meta-data. Why is it a problem? The current tools do not support an access to user experience project data with generic search and filter criteria like case etc. This makes the access to user experience research data difficult and the comparison of user experience project data between different projects inefficient. In general, results of different user experience projects are difficult to reuse. The core idea of data pattern for allocating user experience Meta-Data to User Experience research data is to associate user experience project data with user experience meta-data. The data pattern considers associating user experience project data with user experience meta-data partially automatically and partially manually by the user. The key idea is that we want to reuse project data like the project sponsor, the application area, the industry, use cases etc. as user experience meta-data and assign them to user experience research data. The benefits of the data pattern are: Reusing results of user experience research projects. Making access to available results more efficient. Direct comparison of available results is supported and more efficient. UX Office is the typical instance for application.

In the process of software development, the allocation of resources is a very challenging task so as to minimize cost and at the same time, to deliver software to the client on time. Apart from cost and time concerns, quality characteristics of software also need to be taken into consideration to determine the distribution of available resources among various modules in an application. In the present study, one of the multi-criteria decision making technique (MCDM), Fuzzy analytical hierarchy process (FAHP) is used for pair-wise comparison of criteria and sub-criteria of quality attributes. It is further used for ranking various modules based on conflicting nature of criteria in order to allocate the resources in an efficient way. Later, a numerical is presented to show how the fixed amount of resources is allocated to various modules in a software application in proportion to weights as obtained using Fuzzy AHP.KeywordsResource allocationMulti criteria decision makingFuzzy analytic hierarchy process

In 2020, Weave published my research article, “Structuring and Supporting UX Work in Academic Libraries” (https://doi.org/10.3998/weave.12535642.0003.202). In it, I examined various ways that academic libraries structure and support user experience (UX) work, and I identified some structures and supports that seemed to have a positive impact on both users and UX workers. Two years after applying those findings to restructure my own position, I did not feel I was having a positive impact. I wondered if I had misunderstood or misrepresented my research participants. I decided to check in with some of them to see where I might have gone wrong.

This study aims to evaluate the degree of excellence of the Accurate-5 accounting software by employing the ISO-9126 model, which assesses six dimensions (primary characteristics) and associated attributes (secondary characteristics) of software quality. The researchers measured a sample of 41 participants who attended a workshop at STMIK Mardira Indonesia Bandung using the Accurate-5 software. The researchers gathered primary data using a questionnaire that utilized the Likert scale. The validity test results supported the validity of the items, as a value greater than 0.316 was found. The reliability test results demonstrated that all attributes have a high level of reliability, as each item had a Cronbach's alpha value greater than 0.7. The software quality evaluation findings utilizing the ISO 9126 standard indicate that all dimensions and attributes satisfy the "Good" criteria. The researchers found that the attributes of Compliance, Installability, and Coexistence satisfy the criteria of "Very Good." Based on the data, we can infer that the Accurate-5 software complies with the ISO 9126 standard as it achieved an average percentage score of 77.53%, indicating that it meets the "Good" criteria.

The popularity of User Experience (UX) is exponentially mounting because it predicts users’ engagement through satisfying needs. It further determines product success, revenues augmentation, employee gratifications, user errors, and vital supports. However, contemporary UX Capability Maturity Models (UXCMMs) do not adequately address Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) UX, a substantiated root of adoption misfortune. Improving UX may result from a precise appraisal of the as-is organisational status. Although Software Engineering endorses CMMI, ISO 15504/ISO/IECTS 33061 and UXCMMs for this judgement, none has processes for evaluating FOSSs’ UX. Moreover, the FOSS community has neither theories nor hypotheses to map UXCMMs’ formulation processes. It knows very little regarding their practical applicability, which leaves functional relevance uncertainties. In retorting to present uncertainties, this study accomplished the Systematic Literature Review and encountered eight pertinent articles. They show that most UXCMMs originated from recognised models. Moreover, neither developed nor validated experimentally, used similar methodologies with patched documents and are not exclusive for the FOSS community. They neither handle challenges properly nor reflect earlier studies’ endorsements. The study’s contributions to discovered gaps include proposing additional research areas and a FOSS-specific UXCMMs development checklist to identify UX metrics and standardise UXCMMs’ development processes.

This research presents a developmental-experimental study of Kusot No More, an IoT-based flat-iron vending machine designed to provide affordable and accessible ironing services for students in dormitories and shared living spaces. "Kusot," a Filipino/Cebuano term meaning "wrinkled" or "crumpled," reflects the system's purpose of addressing clothing maintenance challenges in student housing environments. The system integrates an ESP-32 microcontroller, MLX90614 infrared heat sensor, multi-coin acceptor, solid-state relay module, and LM2596 buck converter to automate flat-iron operation through a pay-per-use mechanism. A mobile application was developed using MIT App Inventor to display fabric type selection, real-time temperature monitoring, and remaining usage time, enabling users to make informed decisions about proper garment care. The hardware and software components were integrated following the Agile Development Model across five two-week sprints, addressing compatibility, safety features, and user interface requirements. The prototype was evaluated comprehensively by IT experts using the ISO/IEC 25010 Software Quality Model across four dimensions: Functional Suitability, Performance Efficiency, Compatibility, and Reliability. End-users were surveyed using the standardized USE questionnaire to assess Usefulness, Ease of Use, Ease of Learning, and Satisfaction. Results indicated an overall functionality rating of 4.73 (Moderately Functional), with the system scoring 4.75 in software quality characteristics and 4.84 in usability metrics. The exceptional Ease of Learning score of 5.00 demonstrates effective user interface design. The system demonstrated cost efficiency with total development cost of PHP 11,450 and projected cost recovery within 6-12 months of operation. This study demonstrates how IoT technology can solve everyday practical problems while promoting convenience, safety, and improved garment care for students in institutional settings.

The study titled "Information and Communications Technology Office Service and Activity System with Short Messaging Service" focuses on improving the current processes of the Information and Communications Technology Office through the development of a comprehensive system. The researcher identified problems within the existing processes and drew inspiration from prior arts and the Iterative Software Process Model to develop the Platform with SMS Notification. To evaluate the effectiveness of the system, the researcher used the ISO 25010:20r15 Software Quality Instrument and employed a Descriptive Research Design. The feedback from the respondents justified the study's objectives, leading to the conclusion that all objectives were successfully met. The software was found to exhibit "Very High" effectiveness in terms of various Software Quality Characteristics. The study recommends the full implementation of the developed system in the operational environment of the University. This implementation would bring about an upgrade from manual to automated and paperless recording processes, facilitated by Information Technology solutions. Furthermore, the study encourages future researchers to enhance the developed system by incorporating better features and expanding its scope to cover additional processes. The Study utilized the refreshed servers from the existing information systems that contributes to the maximization of the available resource to its potential use.

The objectives of this study are understanding the requirements of a CSA education app, identifying the limitations of existing apps, and providing a guideline for better app design. An electronic search across three major app stores(Google Play, Apple, and Microsoft) is conducted and the selected apps are rated by three independent raters. Total 191 apps are found and finally, 14 apps are selected for review based on defined inclusion and exclusion criteria. An app rating scale for CSA education apps is devised by modifying existing scales and used to evaluate the selected 14 apps. Our rating scale evaluates essential features, criteria, and software quality characteristics that are necessary for CSA education apps, and determined their effectiveness for potential use as CSA education programs for children. The internal consistency of the rating scale and the inter and intra-rater reliability among the raters are also calculated. User comments from the app stores are collected and analyzed to understand their expectations and views. After analyzing the feasibility of reviewed apps, CSA app design considerations are proposed that highlight game-based teaching approaches. Evaluation results showed that most of the reviewed apps are not suitable for being used as CSA education programs. While a few may be able to teach children and parents individually, only the apps "Child Abuse Prevention" (rate 3.89 out of 5) and "Orbit Rescue" (rate 3.92 out of 5) could be deemed suitable for a school-based CSA education program. However, all those apps need to be improved both their software qualities and CSA-specific features for being considered as potential CSA education programs. This study provides the necessary knowledge to developers and individuals regarding essential features and software quality characteristics for designing and developing CSA education apps.