Tayana Conte

Web usability inspection technique based on design perspectives

A usability inspection technique called Web design perspective based usability evaluation (WDP) as well as the experimentation methodology followed to support its development and improvement is described. Three experimental studies (one secondary and two primaries) were carried out and led to the current version of WDP. Results indicate the feasibility of the WDP technique and its possibility to be more effective than and as efficient as Nielsens heuristics evaluation.

The hard life of open source software project newcomers

While onboarding an open source software (OSS) project, contributors face many different barriers that hinder their contribution, leading in many cases to dropouts. Many projects leverage the contribution of outsiders and the sustainability of the project relies on retaining some of these newcomers. In this paper, we discuss some barriers faced by newcomers to OSS. The barriers were identified using a qualitative analysis on data obtained from newcomers and members of OSS projects. We organize the results in a conceptual model composed of 38 barriers, grouped into seven different categories. These barriers may motivate new studies and the development of appropriate tooling to better support the onboarding of new contributors.

Systematic Literature Reviews in Distributed Software Development: A Tertiary Study

Distributed Software Development (DSD) emerged from the need to achieve geographically distant customers and currently, allows organizations have global customers and other benefits. This scenario has given rise to new Software Engineering challenges resulting from DSD particularities. Several Systematic Reviews were conducted to address these new challenges. The objective of this paper is to categorize systematic reviews conducted in DSD context. We used the systematic review method to identify SLRs (Systematic Literature Reviews) that address DSD aspects. This study is categorized as a tertiary review. Of fourteen SLRs, seven address aspects of managing distributed development. Four SLRs addressed topics of engineering process. The three remaining are related to Requirements, Design and Software Engineering Education in DSD. The topic areas covered by SLRs are limited, where the majority are focused on summarize the current knowledge concerning a research question. Despite the number of SLRs, the amount of empirical studies is relatively small.

Overcoming open source project entry barriers with a portal for newcomers

Community-based Open Source Software (OSS) projects are usually self-organized and dynamic, receiving contributions from distributed volunteers. Newcomer are important to the survival, long-term success, and continuity of these communities. However, newcomers face many barriers when making their first contribution to an OSS project, leading in many cases to dropouts. Therefore, a major challenge for OSS projects is to provide ways to support newcomers during their first contribution. In this paper, we propose and evaluate FLOSScoach, a portal created to support newcomers to OSS projects. FLOSScoach was designed based on a conceptual model of barriers created in our previous work. To evaluate the portal, we conducted a study with 65 students, relying on qualitative data from diaries, self-efficacy questionnaires, and the Technology Acceptance Model. The results indicate that FLOSScoach played an important role in guiding newcomers and in lowering barriers related to the orientation and contribution process, whereas it was not effective in lowering technical barriers. We also found that FLOSScoach is useful, easy to use, and increased newcomers’ confidence to contribute. Our results can help project maintainers on deciding the points that need more attention in order to help OSS project newcomers overcome entry barriers.

Naming the pain in requirements engineering

Requirements Engineering (RE) has received much attention in research and practice due to its importance to software project success. Its interdisciplinary nature, the dependency to the customer, and its inherent uncertainty still render the discipline difficult to investigate. This results in a lack of empirical data. These are necessary, however, to demonstrate which practically relevant RE problems exist and to what extent they matter. Motivated by this situation, we initiated the Naming the Pain in Requirements Engineering (NaPiRE) initiative which constitutes a globally distributed, bi-yearly replicated family of surveys on the status quo and problems in practical RE. In this article, we report on the qualitative analysis of data obtained from 228 companies working in 10 countries in various domains and we reveal which contemporary problems practitioners encounter. To this end, we analyse 21 problems derived from the literature with respect to their relevance and criticality in dependency to their context, and we complement this picture with a cause-effect analysis showing the causes and effects surrounding the most critical problems. Our results give us a better understanding of which problems exist and how they manifest themselves in practical environments. Thus, we provide a first step to ground contributions to RE on empirical observations which, until now, were dominated by conventional wisdom only.

Towards a GSE international teaching network: mapping global software engineering courses

Teaching Global Software Engineering is challenging since it is not trivial to simulate distance and the changes that distance brings into the traditional software development life cycle. Despite the challenge, the need to teach undergrad and graduate students the skills to work in such environment is well-known in academia. The goal of this paper is two-folded. First, we identify what has been thought, by whom and to whom by conducting a literature review. This review aims to consolidate the body of knowledge on the topic in order to help professors and professionals interested in teaching the subject. For instance, we found that 19 courses have been reported involving 25 countries in total since 1997. Most of the courses involves graduate students as the main audience, and mainly discuss challenges in distributed development. Our second goal is to propose the creation of a collaborative repository to store and to report teaching experiences on the topic helping the development and strengthening of the Teaching Network community.

Naming the Pain in Requirements Engineering: Comparing Practices in Brazil and Germany

As part of the Naming the Pain in Requirements Engineering (NaPiRE) initiative, researchers compared problems that companies in Brazil and Germany encountered during requirements engineering (RE). The key takeaway was that in RE, human interaction is necessary for eliciting and specifying high-quality requirements, regardless of country, project type, or company size.

Using an empirical study to evaluate the feasibility of a new usability inspection technique for paper based prototypes of web applications

BackgroundUsability is one of the most important factors that determine the quality of Web applications, which can be verified performing usability inspection. This paper presents the Web Design Usability Evaluation (Web DUE) technique, which allows the identification of usability problems in low-fidelity prototypes (or mockups) of Web applications during the design phases of the development. We have also proposed the Mockup Design Usability Evaluation (Mockup DUE) tool which is able to assist inspectors using the Web DUE technique.MethodIn order to verify the feasibility of these technologies, we have performed two empirical studies. During the first study, we compared the effectiveness and efficiency indicators of the Web DUE technique with the ones of its predecessor, the Web Design Perspective (WDP) based usability inspection technique. Also, during the second study, experienced inspectors used the Mockup DUE tool and answered a questionnaire aiming at identifying improvement opportunities in its design.ResultsThe analysis of the quantitative data showed that the Web DUE technique allowed the identification of more usability problems in lesser time when compared to the WDP technique. Moreover, the qualitative data from the second empirical study provided information on the tool’s perceived ease of use, indicating that inspectors were satisfied and that they would use it to perform a usability inspection with the Web DUE technique.ConclusionsThese results showed that the DUE technologies could be applied in the identification of usability problems early in the design of Web applications. Thus, their use could enable the correction of such problems before the source code of the application is written.

An Ontology for Task Allocation to Teams in Distributed Software Development

An adequate task allocation plan is an effective strategy to reduce collaboration issues in distributed software development. Practitioners adopt distinct processes to allocate tasks as well as diverse labels for the same activities and artifacts. This diversity is also found in literature. Task allocation proposals consider different elements and use distinct names for the same concepts. The lack of a standardized vocabulary and of an understanding of the elements involved impairs knowledge acquisition and sharing. Our paper presents a domain ontology to represent concepts related to task allocation in distributed teams. The ontology was defined based on a literature systematic mapping and on the opinion of experts. Preliminary evaluation suggests that the relationships among concepts are valid in real projects. The ontology brings awareness to managers regarding the factors related to task allocation planning and provides researchers with a framework to define processes and design tools to support such activity.

Assessing the impact of real-time machine translation on requirements meetings: a replicated experiment

Opportunities for global software development are limited in those countries with a lack of English-speaking professionals. Machine translation technology is today available in the form of cross-language web services and can be embedded into multiuser and multilingual chats without disrupting the conversation flow. However, we still lack a thorough understanding of how real-time machine translation may affect communication in global software teams. In this paper, we present the replication of a controlled experiment that assesses the effect of real-time machine translation on multilingual teams while engaged in distributed requirements meetings. In particular, in this replication we specifically evaluate whether non- English speaking groups benefit from communicating in their own native languages when their English is not fluid enough for a fast-paced conversation.