WE-QT: uma técnica de inspeção de usabilidade de aplicações de web para inspetores novatos

Abstract

In recent years, Web applications have been intensive used in current society, and their user population comprises since young kids to elderly individuals. The success of Web applications can be determined by two features: their fast evolution and their usability. Despite the great evolution of Web applications, users often face errors while using them, caused by not intuitive interfaces. A large proportion of this problem is on the development process of these applications, which sometimes does not embody usability principals and methods. Usability evaluations on Web development processes are often avoided by industry professionals due to their lack of experience in the field. Also, usability evaluation can be expensive in terms of time and human resources. Our motivation consists on assist novice inspectors, such as developers with little knowledge on usability, improving the quality of their Web applications by producing better interfaces, with a lower cost. We developed a new usability inspection technique, called WE-QT (Web Evaluation Question Technique). The WE-QT technique was specifically tailored for usability evaluation of Web applications for novice inspectors. Our technique uses a question based approach to guide the inspectors uncovering usability problems. We adopted an experimental methodology to develop WE-QT. This thesis describes the WE-QT’s creation, a feasibility study and two observational studies. Our goal is to increase the quality of Web applications and improve the user’s interaction in this technology.