Hardware Reference
In-Depth Information
web application development. The primary source for identifying case studies was
through the researchers contacts, with possible companies being assessed. Through
this process, five companies were identified, who ranged in size from 15 to 2 softare
development staff. The job titles of those interviewed included Web Development
Manager, Product Manager and Software Development Manager among others.
An interview guide was prepared for use in the semi-structured interviews which
comprised both factual questions and open-ended questions designed to explore the
interviewee's attitudes and opinions. It was designed to be semi-structured based on
the assumption that additional questions would be asked depending on the direction in
which the answers went. The guide was deigned so that each interview would be
completed within an hour, in order to ensure that interviewees would not lose focus.
The five main topic area covered by the interview guide were:
1.
General background information about the company and its business sector.
2.
The organization's software development process and its practice.
3.
The organization's understanding and awareness of usability.
4.
Usability Practices: Usability activities within the development process.
5.
The interviewee's opinion of usability in relation to the company's products.
Detailed notes were taken during each interview and any additional questions that
were asked were also noted. Each interview was also recorded on tape. After each
interview, the tape recordings were transcribed and the interview notes were reviewed
and documented. This material was then used as the basis for within-case analysis.
The researchers looked for interesting findings or contradictory answers and wrote a
summary of observations for each case. All five interviews took place over a two
month period. After all of the interviews had been completed, the researchers began
within-case analysis. After the within-case analysis was complete, cross-case analysis
was carried out.
4 Analysis
This section presents the cross-case analysis of the data collected during the case
study interviews. It examines the findings of the interviews under the areas of Soft-
ware Process, Usability Awareness, Usability Practices and Product Usability. Firstly,
it looks at the software practices followed by the case study companies and compares
them to recommended practices as discussed in the literature and whether they have
adopted suggested practices for web application development. It then discusses the
awareness of usability and investigate usability practices of the case study companies
and examines the gap between their practices and suggested usability design tech-
niques. Lastly, it discusses the opinions of the interviewees about the usability of their
products and examines the lack of evidence available on the level of usability of to-
day's web applications.
4.1 Software Process
Of the five case studies, two companies use RUP as their development method, one
uses an Agile approach and the other two use an internally developed process based
