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Table 2. Frequency of some keywords in KDE, GNOME and Mozilla bug database. Numbers given
include only those found in open bugs.
Keyword
KDE bug database
GNOME bug da-
tabase
Mozilla bug data-
base
Total number of open bugs by 9/9/2008
32000+
37000+
44000+
Usability
1020
997
38
Usable
678
414
115
Interface design
111
71
6
Human interface guidelines
8
19
1
User centric (centered) design
1
5
0
During the discussions, a category-specific or
product-specific user interface guideline could
also be produced.
According to Nichols and Twidale (2006),
main arguments for the proposition that usability
may be an area of concern for OSS can be sum-
marized as follows:
while submitting a usability bug.
Nichols and Twidale (2006) outline some of
the usability work in open source projects. Their
observations derive from ethnographic study of
the Mozilla and GNOME projects, following an
observational approach based around bug reposi-
tories, mailing lists and blogs. Other interesting
usability activities in F/OSS domain include
usability sprints, usually held periodically. In a
sprint, open source developers, usability prac-
titioners, project managers, and users gather to
discuss methodologies in order to improve the
usability of F/OSS software and apply those
processes towards specific projects. With the goal
to catalyze a shared understanding and ongoing
collaboration between the usability and open
source communities, these physical meetings blur
the distance among disconnected stakeholders of
F/OSS community.
There are many published methodologies to
ensure a user centered design process during the
development of a product. All of these method-
ologies focus on the end users who will directly
benefit from the product and the purpose for
which they use.Among various usability method-
ologies, card sorting, usability testing and video
screen capturing are the least used ones in open
source domain since these require a systematic
progress and relatively high degree of usability
expertise.
Over years, researchers tried to align usability
1.
Developers are not typical end users.
2.
Usability experts do not get involved in OSS
projects.
3.
Open source projects lack the resources to
undertake high-quality usability work.
4.
Interface (re)design may not be amenable
to the same approaches as functionality (re)
design.
In the absence of usability expertise, 'itch-
based OSS design' will not necessarily succeed
in improving ease of use for those users, such
as novices, whose background differs from that
of the developers (Nichols and Twidale, 2005).
Still, a typical, basic search on KDE, GNOME
and Mozilla bug database show that there are
relatively less number of bugs containing the
terms usability, usable, interface design, human
interface guidelines and user centric design (Table
2). On the other hand, a study by Çetin, Verzulli
and Frings (2007) reveals that one third of KDE
bugs are usability bugs, the table shows that re-
porters do not refer to the aforementioned terms
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