User-Developer Cooperation in Software Development: Building Common Ground and Usable Systems

ISBN-13: 9781852333119 / Angielski / Twarda / 2001 / 317 str.

E. O'Neill; Eamonn O'Neill

Opis

The topic of the research reported here is direct user participation in the task-based development of interactive software systems. Building usable software demands understanding and supporting users and their tasks. Users are a primary source of usability requirements and knowledge, since users can be expected to have intimate and extensive knowledge of themselves, their tasks and their working environment. Task analysis approaches to software development encourage a focus on supporting users and their tasks while participatory design approaches encourage users' direct, active contributions to software development work. However, participatory design approaches often concentrate their efforts on design activities rather than on wider system development activities, while task analysis approaches generally lack active user participation beyond initial data gathering. This research attempts an integration of the strengths of task analysis and user participation within an overall software development process. This work also presents detailed empirical and theoretical analyses of what it is for users and developers to cooperate, of the nature of user-developer interaction in participatory settings. Furthermore, it makes operational and assesses the effectiveness of user participation in development and the impact of user-developer cooperation on the resulting software product. The research addressed these issues through the development and application of an approach to task based participatory development in two real world development projects. In this integrated approach, the respective strengths of task analysis and participatory design methods complemented each other's weaker aspects.

Spis treści

1: Introduction.- 1.1 Background.- 1.2 Problem Statement.- 1.3 Research Approach.- 1.4 Results and Contributions Made.- 1.5 Outline of Chapters.- 2: A Longitudinal View on Software Development and Participation.- 2.1 Computer Systems Development: Changing Constraints.- 2.1.1 Phase I Systems Development.- 2.1.2 Phase II Systems Development.- 2.1.3 Phase III Systems Development.- 2.2 Participatory Design.- 2.3 Giving the Users What They Want: Effective HCI.- 2.3.1 Evolution in HCI.- 2.3.2 Task Analysis and Participatory Design.- 2.4 Where Are We Now?.- 2.4.1 Listening to Developers.- 2.4.2 We Are Here.- 2.5 Research Questions Raised.- 3: The Projects and Their Analysis.- 3.1 The Development Method.- 3.2 The Development Projects Studied.- 3.2.1 Pilot Project Overview.- 3.2.2 CI Project Overview.- 3.2.3 CS Project Overview.- 3.3 Data Available from the Projects.- 3.4 Research Method.- 3.4.1 Analysing Interaction.- 3.4.2 Approaches to the Research Questions.- 3.4.3 Issues in Performing Video-Based Analysis.- 3.4.4 On Researcher Involvement in the Projects.- 4: Towards a Theory of User-Developer Cooperation.- 4.1 Developing Interaction Analysis.- 4.1.1 Identifying Process in Cooperative Development.- 4.1.2 Exploring Artefacts and Relations in Cooperative Development.- 4.1.3 Process Revisited.- 4.2 The Construction of Shared Understandings.- 4.3 Cooperative Development and Common Ground.- 4.4 Conclusion.- 5: Effective Participation: Contributing to Discourse and Artefacts.- 5.1 The Nature of Participation: Contributing to Discourse.- 5.1.1 Making a Contribution.- 5.1.2 Types of Contribution.- 5.2 Were the Studied Projects Participatory.- 5.2.1 Expected User Contributions to User-Developer Collaboration.- 5.2.2 Methodology in Assessing Contributions.- 5.2.3 Observed User Contributions to User-Developer Collaboration.- 5.2.4 Conclusions on Participation.- 5.3 Effective Participation: Contributing to Artefacts.- 5.3.1 Contributions and Evidence of Effectiveness.- 5.3.2 Effectiveness of User Participation in the Projects.- 5.4 Conclusion.- 6: User Participation and Software Usability.- 6.1 Evaluating the Software.- 6.1.1 Recruiting Subjects.- 6.1.1.1 CI Subjects.- 6.1.1.2 CS Subjects.- 6.1.2 Defining Tasks.- 6.1.2.1 CI Tasks.- 6.1.2.2 CS Tasks.- 6.1.3 Running Evaluations.- 6.1.3.1 CI Evaluation.- 6.1.3.2 CS Evaluation.- 6.2 Summary of the Usability Evaluation Results.- 6.2.1 Summary of the CI Evaluation Results.- 6.2.2 Summary of the CS Evaluation Results.- 6.3 Tracing Relationships Between Contributions, Software Features and Usability.- 6.3.1 Tracing Upstream.- 6.3.2 Tracing Downstream.- 6.4 Results of Tracing Analysis.- 6.4.1 Results of Upstream Tracing.- 6.4.2 Results of Downstream Tracing.- 6.4.2.1 Results of Tracing Downstream from Work Analysis Activity.- 6.4.2.2 Results of Tracing Downstream from Work Design Activity.- 6.4.2.3 Results of Tracing Downstream from Software Design Activity.- 6.5 Discussion.- 6.5.1 Deus ex Machina.- 6.5.2 Technology.- 6.5.3 Standard Flow.- 6.5.4 Ineffective Contributions.- 6.5.5 Unvalued Contributions.- 6.5.6 Unrequested Features.- 6.5.7 False Absence.- 6.6 Conclusion.- 7: Task-Based Cooperative Development: Conclusions.- 7.1 Summary.- 7.2 Lessons and Limitations.- 7.2.1 Building Theory.- 7.2.2 On Research Methodology.- 7.2.3 Improving Practice.- 7.3 Future Work.