Bettina Thurnher

PlanningLines: novel glyphs for representing temporal uncertainties and their evaluation

Dealing with temporal uncertainties is a key issue in domains like project management or medical treatment planning. However, support for temporal indeterminacies is not very well integrated in current methods, techniques, and tools. In this paper, we present a visualization technique called PlanningLines that allows for representing temporal uncertainties and aims at supporting project managers in their difficult planning and controlling tasks. We conducted a controlled experiment to gather empirical evidence on the strengths and limitations of our approach. Main results are that PlanningLine users make fewer mistakes and are faster in conducting tasks than users of a traditional visualization technique.

From extreme programming and usability engineering to extreme usability in software engineering education (XP+UE /spl rarr/ XU)

The success of extreme programming (XP) is based, among other things, on an optimal communication in teams of 6-12 persons, simplicity, frequent releases and a reaction to changing demands. Most of all, the customer is integrated into the development process, with constant feedback. This is very similar to usability engineering (UE) which follows a spiral four phase procedure model (analysis, draft, development, test) and a three step (paper mock-up, prototype, final product) production model. In comparison, these phases are extremely shortened in XP; also the ideal team size in UE user-centered development is 4-6 people, including the end-user. The two development approaches have different goals but, at the same time, employ similar methods to achieve them. It seems obvious that there must be synergy in combining them. The authors present ideas in how to combine them in an even more powerful development method called extreme usability (XU). The most important issue of this paper is that the authors have embedded their ideas into software engineering education.

Wertorientierte Gestaltung von Unternehmensarchitekturen

ZusammenfassungUnternehmensarchitekturen sollen eine bessere Abstimmung informationstechnischer Potenziale und betriebswirtschaftlicher Anforderungen ermöglichen. Bisherige Arbeiten liefern überwiegend Ordnungsrahmen, die relevante Gestaltungsfelder systematisieren. Allerdings ist zu berücksichtigen, dass mit der Gestaltung von Unternehmensarchitekturen in der Praxis eine Vielzahl an Entscheidungen verbunden ist, deren ökonomische Konsequenzen bereits in die Planung einzubeziehen sind. Mit diesem Beitrag wird gezeigt, wie bestehende Methoden zu erweitern sind, um eine am Wert ausgerichtete Gestaltung von Unternehmensarchitekturen vorzunehmen. Hierzu können ökonomische Zielwerte berechnet werden, wie z. B. der Return on Investment (ROI), die den Wertbeitrag der Unternehmensarchitektur in einer spezifischen Unternehmenssituation aufzeigen. Die im Beitrag erarbeitete Methode wird anhand eines praktischen Beispiels für die Einführung einer Mobile-Business-Lösung veranschaulicht.

Early Software Product Improvement with Sequential Inspection Sessions: An Empirical Investigation of Inspector Capability and Learning Effects

Software inspection facilitates product improvement in early phases of software development by detecting defects in various types of documents, e.g., requirements and design specifications. Empirical study reports show that usage-based reading (UBR) techniques can focus inspectors on most important use cases. However, the impact of inspector qualification and learning effects in the context of inspecting a set of documents in several sessions is still not well understood. This paper contributes a model for investigating the impact of inspector capability and learning effects on inspection effectiveness and efficiency in a large-scale empirical study in an academic context. Main findings of the study are (a) the inspection technique UBR better supported the performance inspectors with lower experience in sequential inspection cycles (learning effect) and (b) when inspecting objects of similar complexity significant improvements of defect detection performance could be measured.