Large software organizations handle many customer support issues every day in the form of bug reports, feature requests, and general misunderstandings as submitted by customers. Strategies to gather, analyze, and negotiate requirements are comple- mented by efforts to manage customer input after products have been deployed. For the latter, support tickets are key in allowing customers to submit their issues, bug re- ports, and feature requests. Whenever insufficient attention is given to support issues, there is a chance customers will escalate their issues, and escalation to management is time-consuming and expensive, especially for large organizations managing hundreds of customers and thousands of support tickets. This thesis provides a step towards simplifying the job for support analysts and managers, particularly in predicting the risk of escalating support tickets. In a field study at our large industrial partner, IBM, a design science methodology was employed to characterize the support process and data available to IBM analysts in managing escalations. Through iterative cycles of design and evaluation, support analysts’ expert knowledge about their customers was translated into features of a support ticket model to be implemented into a Ma- chine Learning model to predict support ticket escalations. The Machine Learning model was trained and evaluated on over 2.5 million support tickets and 10,000 escalations, obtaining a recall of 79.9% and an 80.8% reduction in the workload for support analysts looking to identify support tickets at risk of escalation. Further on- site evaluations were conducted through a tool developed to implement the Machine Learning techniques in industry, deployed during weekly support-ticket-management meetings. The features developed in the Support Ticket Model are designed to serve as a starting place for organizations interested in implementing the model to predict support ticket escalations, and for future researchers to build on to advance research in Escalation Prediction. / Graduate

The full enforcement of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) that began on May 25, 2018 forced any organization that collects and/or processes personal data from European Union citizens to comply with a series of stringent and comprehensive privacy regulations. Many software organizations struggled to comply with the entirety of the GDPR's regulations both leading up and even after the GDPR deadline. Previous studies on the subject of the GDPR have primarily focused on finding implications for users and organizations using surveys or interviews. However, there is a dearth of in-depth studies that investigate compliance practices and compliance challenges in software organizations. In particular, small and medium enterprises are often neglected in these previous studies, despite small and medium enterprises representing the majority of organizations in the EU. Furthermore, organizations that practice continuous integration have largely been ignored in studies on GDPR compliance. Using design science methodology, we conducted an in-depth study over the span of 20 months regarding GDPR compliance practices and challenges in collaboration with a small, startup organization. Our first step helped identify our collaborator's business problems. Subsequently, we iteratively developed two artifacts to address those business problems: a set of privacy requirements operationalized from GDPR principles, and an automated GDPR tool that tests these GDPR-derived privacy requirements. This design science approach resulted in five implications for research and for practice about ongoing challenges to compliance. For instance, our research reveals that GDPR regulations can be partially operationalized and tested through automated means, which is advantageous for achieving long term compliance. In contrast, more research is needed to create more efficient and effective means to disseminate and manage GDPR knowledge among software developers. / Graduate

Although interest in Performance Measurement and Management Systems (PMMS) and their application in various organizations has grown substantially, they are mainly developed for larger companies, and practitioners find it challenging to implement these systems in Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs). SME characteristics such as limited budget, lack of experience and knowledge, and pace of change usually make it difficult for managers to adopt and use traditional PMMS. One of the solutions to the lack of applicability of PMMS in the SME context is provided by integrating traditional PMMS with Business Intelligence (BI) and Business Analytics (BA) tools and technologies. The main goal of this thesis is to design and evaluate a Performance Management System based on Business Intelligence (PMS-BI) artifact that contains frameworks, architectures, tools and guidelines to help SMEs evaluate their current Performance Management System (PMS), select the most suitable PMS-BI system components, and design their own PMS based on BI. This artifact also guides them throughout the year by providing tools to assess their PMS-BI and maintain it. For this thesis, I applied a Design Science Research (DSR) methodology to collect the relevant information needed in the design step, design and develop the artifact, and evaluate it. I used the case study approach in the design's information collection and artifact evaluation phases. The final artifact consists of an executive document that guides the SME managers to design their own PMS-BI and helps them have a perception of its efficiency. In the data collection phase, I systematically reviewed the relevant literature to understand best practices, then interviewed eleven participants from seven SMEs to find out the gaps and requirements regarding PMS in SMEs. These participants are directly responsible for the PMS in their organization. Then by combining this information, I extracted the PMS-BI features. In the creative process of system design, I used these features to develop the artifact. Then, I presented the results to the same participants in the form of an executive summary. Finally, I used a “usability questionnaire” to understand participants' opinions about the artifact and document their feedback. My research fills the gap in the application of DSR in the PMS artifact development. This thesis helps researchers understand the application of DSR in designing and developing PMS artifacts for SMEs. In addition, the final artifact can be used by SMEs to develop and apply their own PMS-BI.

The research reported and discussed in this thesis represents a novel approach to define custom gestures and to include gesture-based interaction in user interfaces of the software systems with the aim of help to solve the problems found in the related literature about the development of gesture-based user interfaces. The research is conducted according to Design Science methodology that is based on the design and investigation of artefacts in a context. In this thesis, the new artefact is the model-driven method to include gesture-based interaction in user interfaces. This methodology considers two cycles: the main cycle is an engineering cycle where we design a model-driven method to include interaction based on gestures. The second cycle is the research cycle, we define two research cycles: the first research cycle corresponds to the validation of the proposed method with an empirical evaluation and the second cycle corresponds to the technical action research to validate the method in an industrial context. Additionally, Design Science provides us the clues on how to conduct the research, be rigorous, and put in practice scientific rules. Besides Design Science has been a key issue for organising our research, we acknowledge the application of this framework since it has helps us to report clearly our findings. The thesis presents a theoretical framework introducing concepts related with the research performed, followed by a state of the art where we know about the related work in three areas: Human-computer Interaction, Model-driven paradigm in Human-Computer Interaction and Empirical Software Engineering. The design and implementation of gestUI is presented following the Model-driven Paradigm and the Model-View-Controller design pattern. Then, we performed two evaluations of gestUI: (i) an empirical evaluation based on ISO 25062-2006 to evaluate usability considering effectiveness, efficiency and satisfaction. Satisfaction is measured with perceived ease of use, perceived usefulness and intention of use, and (ii) a technical action research to evaluate user experience and usability. We use Model Evaluation Method, User Experience Questionnaire and Microsoft Reaction cards as guides to perform the aforementioned evaluations. The contributions of our thesis, limitations of the tool support and the approach are discussed and further work are presented. / La investigación reportada y discutida en esta tesis representa un método nuevo para definir gestos personalizados y para incluir interacción basada en gestos en interfaces de usuario de sistemas software con el objetivo de ayudar a resolver los problemas encontrados en la literatura relacionada respecto al desarrollo de interfaces basadas en gestos de usuarios. Este trabajo de investigación ha sido realizado de acuerdo a la metodología Ciencia del Diseño, que está basada en el diseño e investigación de artefactos en un contexto. En esta tesis, el nuevo artefacto es el método dirigido por modelos para incluir interacción basada en gestos en interfaces de usuario. Esta metodología considera dos ciclos: el ciclo principal, denominado ciclo de ingeniería, donde se ha diseñado un método dirigido por modelos para incluir interacción basada en gestos. El segundo ciclo es el ciclo de investigación, donde se definen dos ciclos de este tipo. El primero corresponde a la validación del método propuesto con una evaluación empírica y el segundo ciclo corresponde a un Technical Action Research para validar el método en un contexto industrial. Adicionalmente, Ciencia del Diseño provee las claves sobre como conducir la investigación, sobre cómo ser riguroso y poner en práctica reglas científicas. Además, Ciencia del Diseño ha sido un recurso clave para organizar la investigación realizada en esta tesis. Nosotros reconocemos la aplicación de este marco de trabajo puesto que nos ayuda a reportar claramente nuestros hallazgos. Esta tesis presenta un marco teórico introduciendo conceptos relacionados con la investigación realizada, seguido por un estado del arte donde conocemos acerca del trabajo relacionado en tres áreas: Interacción Humano-Ordenador, paradigma dirigido por modelos en Interacción Humano-Ordenador e Ingeniería de Software Empírica. El diseño e implementación de gestUI es presentado siguiendo el paradigma dirigido por modelos y el patrón de diseño Modelo-Vista-Controlador. Luego, nosotros hemos realizado dos evaluaciones de gestUI: (i) una evaluación empírica basada en ISO 25062-2006 para evaluar la usabilidad considerando efectividad, eficiencia y satisfacción. Satisfacción es medida por medio de la facilidad de uso percibida, utilidad percibida e intención de uso; y, (ii) un Technical Action Research para evaluar la experiencia del usuario y la usabilidad. Nosotros hemos usado Model Evaluation Method, User Experience Questionnaire y Microsoft Reaction Cards como guías para realizar las evaluaciones antes mencionadas. Las contribuciones de nuestra tesis, limitaciones del método y de la herramienta de soporte, así como el trabajo futuro son discutidas y presentadas. / La investigació reportada i discutida en aquesta tesi representa un mètode per definir gests personalitzats i per incloure interacció basada en gests en interfícies d'usuari de sistemes de programari. L'objectiu és ajudar a resoldre els problemes trobats en la literatura relacionada al desenvolupament d'interfícies basades en gests d'usuaris. Aquest treball d'investigació ha sigut realitzat d'acord a la metodologia Ciència del Diseny, que està basada en el disseny i investigació d'artefactes en un context. En aquesta tesi, el nou artefacte és el mètode dirigit per models per incloure interacció basada en gests en interfícies d'usuari. Aquesta metodologia es considerada en dos cicles: el cicle principal, denominat cicle d'enginyeria, on es dissenya un mètode dirigit per models per incloure interacció basada en gestos. El segon cicle és el cicle de la investigació, on es defineixen dos cicles d'aquest tipus. El primer es correspon a la validació del mètode proposat amb una avaluació empírica i el segon cicle es correspon a un Technical Action Research per validar el mètode en un context industrial. Addicionalment, Ciència del Disseny proveeix les claus sobre com conduir la investigació, sobre com ser rigorós i ficar en pràctica regles científiques. A més a més, Ciència del Disseny ha sigut un recurs clau per organitzar la investigació realitzada en aquesta tesi. Nosaltres reconeixem l'aplicació d'aquest marc de treball donat que ens ajuda a reportar clarament les nostres troballes. Aquesta tesi presenta un marc teòric introduint conceptes relacionats amb la investigació realitzada, seguit per un estat del art on coneixem a prop el treball realitzat en tres àrees: Interacció Humà-Ordinador, paradigma dirigit per models en la Interacció Humà-Ordinador i Enginyeria del Programari Empírica. El disseny i implementació de gestUI es presenta mitjançant el paradigma dirigit per models i el patró de disseny Model-Vista-Controlador. Després, nosaltres hem realitzat dos avaluacions de gestUI: (i) una avaluació empírica basada en ISO 25062-2006 per avaluar la usabilitat considerant efectivitat, eficiència i satisfacció. Satisfacció es mesura mitjançant la facilitat d'ús percebuda, utilitat percebuda i intenció d'ús; (ii) un Technical Action Research per avaluar l'experiència del usuari i la usabilitat. Nosaltres hem usat Model Evaluation Method, User Experience Questionnaire i Microsoft Reaction Cards com guies per realitzar les avaluacions mencionades. Les contribucions de la nostra tesi, limitacions del mètode i de la ferramenta de suport així com el treball futur són discutides i presentades. / Parra González, LO. (2017). gestUI: a model-driven method for including gesture-based interaction in user interfaces [Tesis doctoral no publicada]. Universitat Politècnica de València. https://doi.org/10.4995/Thesis/10251/89090 / TESIS