Supporting Usability Evaluation in Practice : An Empirical study of Pakistani Software Industry (T-0714) (MFN 5091)

Abstract

Usability, or the “ease of use” of a software application, is important in order to allow a user to carry out the intended task in an efficient and effective manner. The goal of the thesis is to analyse the current practices followed by Pakistani software industry in the area of usability evaluation. A survey of the Pakistani software industry was carried out for this purpose. This survey is based on the various usability evaluations techniques proposed in the existing usability engineering literature. This analysis acts as an initial conceptual model for our survey questionnaire. Based on the responses of the participants, a usability evaluation framework is proposed to improve the existing usability evaluation practice in the Pakistani software industry. Our survey has shown that Action analysis and Think aloud protocol along with Nielsen’s ten heuristics are widely used in the industry. It also show that there is no vital work done regarding usability evaluation practice followed by the Pakistani software industry, thus giving us an opportunity to explore this dimension in detail. In the end guidelines are proposed to enhance the usability evaluation practice in the software industry.