Research reports that the search for health information is the fourth most popular activity being done on the web (Pew Internet & American Life Project, 2004). However, for disabled persons, barriers experienced when interfacing with the Internet may cause healthcare websites to be inaccessible to them. This study explores the level of accessibility of healthcare websites and the relationship between accessibility and usability by determining how compliant state department of health and human services websites are with accessibility and usability guidelines. A content analysis of each state’s department of health and human services website was conducted. Results revealed that state department of health and human services websites are not very compliant with accessibility guidelines, are somewhat compliant with usability guidelines, and overall are not very accessible. The findings also indicate that there is a significant moderate relationship between accessibility and usability which suggests that the two concepts are interconnected.

Orientador: Edberto Ferneda / Banca: Silvana Aparecida Borsetti Gregório Vidotti / Banca: Guilherme Ataíde Dias / Resumo: A pesquisa realiza um estudo acerca de um catálogo específico, o Athena, considerado um sistema de recuperação de informação estruturado e organizado. Nesse ambiente se tem como objetivo avaliar um conjunto de diretrizes de usabilidade e aplicá-las em sistemas de recuperação de informação na Web, levando em consideração aspectos relativos não só à usabilidade de sua interface, mas também à sua eficiência no processo de recuperação. O estudo se caracteriza como exploratório e descritivo-analítico. Para tanto, procurou-se inicialmente revisar a literatura nacional e internacional sobre recuperação de informação e usabilidade, em várias fontes informacionais, impressas e eletrônicas, como embasamento teórico do trabalho. Em segunda etapa, foi realizada uma análise heurística, e por último foram realizados testes de usabilidade com usuários em que se aplicaram dois procedimentos: um questionário semi-estruturado e um instrumento de observação. Após as análises quantitativa e qualitativa dos dados, o teste com os usuários possibilitou verificar o modo como eles interagem com a interface do Catálogo Athena e as formas de busca que costumam realizar em outras ferramentas disponíveis na Web. Também foi possível validar alguns apontamentos feitos na análise heurística, pois a maioria dos participantes da pesquisa revelou não ter qualquer experiência na utilização do Catálogo Athena. Verifica-se, nesta pesquisa, a importância de se aplicar os testes com usuários em ambientes de recuperação de informação, considerando-os como parte fundamental no desenvolvimento de qualquer sistema. / Abstract: The research conducts a study about a specific catalog, the Athena, considered a system of retrieval of information structured and organized. In this environment you have to evaluate a set of guidelines for usability and apply them in systems for retrieval of information on the Web, taking into account aspects relating not only to the usability of its interface, but also its efficiency in the recovery process. The study is characterized as exploratory and descriptive and analytical. Thus, it was initially to review the national and international literature on recovery of information and usability in various informational sources, printed and electronic, as the theoretical work. In the second stage, was a heuristic analysis, and finally usability tests were carried out with users that were applied in two procedures: a semi-structured questionnaire and an instrument of observation. After the analysis of quantitative and qualitative data, the test allows users to determine how they interact with the interface of the Athena Catalog and the forms of search that usually take place in other tools available on the Web was also possible to validate some notes made in heuristic analysis, because the majority of the research has shown to have no experience in the use of Athena Catalog. This research shows the importance of applying the tests with users in environments of retrieval of information, considering them a vital part in the development of any system. / Mestre

The purpose of this thesis is to explore and study the usability issues within Technical Data Management Systems (TDMS). The research has been conducted as a single case study at the gardening and landscape maintenance company Husqvarna. The inductive research led to conducting 10 interviews, 2 expert focus groups and a observational study. An artefact was produced during the research to emulate a potential system. During the research, the researchers identified ten heuristic usability issues within TDMS. Fur- thermore the functional and non-functional needs of Husqvarna have been identified. The artefact was created, based on existing usability guidelines, addressing the usability issues and the needs of Husqvarna. The artefact was used to answer if the applied guidelines have solved the identified usability issues. The conclusion was set, that the applied guidelines had solved the identified issues. With the research being conducted with a single case study, the result may lack generalisability. Future researchers are encouraged to conduct a multiple case study to further identify issues within the research area.

The library profession is now heavily involved in providing access to information through library web sites and it is a challenge to design a web site that has reliable content and a user interface that is intuitive to those who use it. As web accessibility and usability are major issues in the design of library Web sites, this paper suggests that the design will be most successful when a usability analysis tool is used throughout the design and redesign of academic library web sites. The research drew on the literature of Human-computer Interaction and usability engineering examining best practice usability and accessibility design guidelines. It identified those guidelines that were relevant to academic library web sites. In order to establish the extent to which Australian academic library web sites met usability guidelines a usability analysis tool was developed and used to evaluate a randomly selected sample of web sites. The web sites were categorised under higher education institutional archetypes as suggested by DETYA (1998) and the results were discussed in light of these groups. The research found that there was no correlation of the usability of the web sites between the archetypes. In fact the pattern of usability was randomly distributed across all institutions, with the best and worst results appearing in each archetypical category. The study concluded that the web has provided a whole new start for all institutions and after examining the results, it suggested that the design of early web sites was not based on the size or the past history of the institution that it belonged to, but rather reflected those factors, already established in the literature, that faced library web managers at that time, when designing the library web page.

Made available in DSpace on 2014-06-11T19:26:43Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 0 Previous issue date: 2008-12-18Bitstream added on 2014-06-13T20:55:10Z : No. of bitstreams: 1 banhos_vtm_me_mar.pdf: 1422928 bytes, checksum: 977a0ea15880193aa3d5bf45c8985f1a (MD5) / Universidade Estadual Paulista (UNESP) / A pesquisa realiza um estudo acerca de um catálogo específico, o Athena, considerado um sistema de recuperação de informação estruturado e organizado. Nesse ambiente se tem como objetivo avaliar um conjunto de diretrizes de usabilidade e aplicá-las em sistemas de recuperação de informação na Web, levando em consideração aspectos relativos não só à usabilidade de sua interface, mas também à sua eficiência no processo de recuperação. O estudo se caracteriza como exploratório e descritivo-analítico. Para tanto, procurou-se inicialmente revisar a literatura nacional e internacional sobre recuperação de informação e usabilidade, em várias fontes informacionais, impressas e eletrônicas, como embasamento teórico do trabalho. Em segunda etapa, foi realizada uma análise heurística, e por último foram realizados testes de usabilidade com usuários em que se aplicaram dois procedimentos: um questionário semi-estruturado e um instrumento de observação. Após as análises quantitativa e qualitativa dos dados, o teste com os usuários possibilitou verificar o modo como eles interagem com a interface do Catálogo Athena e as formas de busca que costumam realizar em outras ferramentas disponíveis na Web. Também foi possível validar alguns apontamentos feitos na análise heurística, pois a maioria dos participantes da pesquisa revelou não ter qualquer experiência na utilização do Catálogo Athena. Verifica-se, nesta pesquisa, a importância de se aplicar os testes com usuários em ambientes de recuperação de informação, considerando-os como parte fundamental no desenvolvimento de qualquer sistema. / The research conducts a study about a specific catalog, the Athena, considered a system of retrieval of information structured and organized. In this environment you have to evaluate a set of guidelines for usability and apply them in systems for retrieval of information on the Web, taking into account aspects relating not only to the usability of its interface, but also its efficiency in the recovery process. The study is characterized as exploratory and descriptive and analytical. Thus, it was initially to review the national and international literature on recovery of information and usability in various informational sources, printed and electronic, as the theoretical work. In the second stage, was a heuristic analysis, and finally usability tests were carried out with users that were applied in two procedures: a semi-structured questionnaire and an instrument of observation. After the analysis of quantitative and qualitative data, the test allows users to determine how they interact with the interface of the Athena Catalog and the forms of search that usually take place in other tools available on the Web was also possible to validate some notes made in heuristic analysis, because the majority of the research has shown to have no experience in the use of Athena Catalog. This research shows the importance of applying the tests with users in environments of retrieval of information, considering them a vital part in the development of any system.

Usability guidelines for user interface (UI) design formulated by Nielsen and other authorities were used to redesign the web interface for a web based distance education course. The website's original UI, as judged by a group of web design professionals, violated standard guidelines for usability, readability, learnability, consistency, efficiency of use and flexibility. The original and redesigned UIs were tested using thinking aloud testing, a user satisfaction survey, and usability inspection. The results of user testing and heuristic evaluation suggest that the use of these guidelines in website redesign had a positive impact on user performance. A more conclusive result would have required a larger sample size and a redesigned testing protocol that varied the order in which participants worked with the old and redesigned interfaces.

The Department of Engineering Science at University West in Trollhättan was in need of a new system for scheduling personnel, as the existing system is based upon an Excel-file and is hard to work with and does not provide an easy way for the users to collaborate.The purpose of this study was to examine how existing principles and guidelines regarding interface design can be used to create a new web based system with a high usability. The purpose is also to examine how participatory design affects the design process and outcome.To create a system with a high grade of usability, a number of existing rules and guidelines regarding usability and a number of subjects regarding interaction design, were used by the development team as tools.Even though the study showed that usability guidelines can be a valuable tool and provide a good foundation it is important to emphasize the use of other techniques. For example the use of participatory design, which in the study was found to be of great value to the development team. / Institutionen för ingenjörsvetenskap vid Högskolan Väst i Trollhättan var i behov av ett nytt tjänsteplaneringssystem då det nuvarande system som är Excel-baserat är svårt att arbeta med och ej erbjuder något effektivt sätt för användarna att samarbeta.Syftet med studien var att studera hur de principer och riktlinjer som finns gällande interaktionsdesign kan användas för att skapa ett nytt webbaserat system. Syftet var också att undersöka hur deltagande design påverkar design processen och dess resultat.För att skapa ett system med en hög grad användarbarhet har ett antal regler och riktlinjer som berör användarbarhet och ett antal begrepp inom interaktionsdesign använts av utvecklingslaget som verktyg.Även om studien visar att användning av användarbarhetsriktlinjer kan vara ett värdefullt verktyg och erbjuda en god grund är det viktigt att använda fler tekniker. Till exempel användandet av deltagande design, som i studien har funnits vara av stort värde för utvecklingslaget.

Tesis por compendio / [ES] La investigación desarrollada en esta tesis representa un marco novedoso para capturar requisitos de usabilidad durante el desarrollo de un sistema software. Estos requisitos, están representados como alternativas de diseños de Interfaces de Usuario (IU). El objetivo es desarrollar un proceso de captura de requisitos de usabilidad basado en entrevistas estructuradas con el apoyo de una herramienta que ayude a resolver problemas como: (1) la omisión de la usabilidad desde las primeras etapas de desarrollo, en general, las características de usabilidad solo se tienen en cuenta al diseñar las interfaces en las últimas etapas de desarrollo; (2) resulta tedioso la captura de requisitos para analistas que no son expertos en usabilidad; (3) los métodos y herramientas que se utilizan para desarrollar software no admiten la elicitación de requisitos de usabilidad. A partir de estos problemas encontrados en la literatura se definen las preguntas de investigación: ¿Es posible capturar requisitos de usabilidad en etapas iniciales de desarrollo al mismo tiempo que los requisitos funcionales? Para responder a esta pregunta, la tesis ha definido un método de elicitación de requisitos de usabilidad llamado UREM (por sus siglas en inglés, Usability Requirements Elicitation Method) y ha propuesto un método para tratarlo dentro de entornos MDD. El desarrollo de este trabajo de investigación se ha llevado a cabo siguiendo la metodología Design Science. Esta metodología considera dos ciclos: el primer ciclo es un ciclo de ingeniería en el que se diseña un método para incluir requisitos de usabilidad durante el proceso de elicitación de requisitos. El segundo ciclo corresponde a la validación del método propuesto mediante una evaluación empírica dentro de un contexto académico. La propuesta de captura de requisitos de usabilidad mediante UREM consiste en la definición de una estructura de un árbol donde las guías de usabilidad y las guías de diseño de IU están almacenadas. El árbol se define como un grafo conectado sin ciclos y una raíz; compuesto de 4 elementos: pregunta, respuesta, grupo de preguntas y diseño. Las preguntas y las alternativas de diseño (respuestas) son extraídas de las guías de usabilidad y de diseño, y marcan el camino por el cual el analista navega hasta llegar a los nodos hoja que son los diseños de la interfaz de usuario que se han alcanzado durante el proceso de captura de requisitos de usabilidad. Son los usuarios finales quienes eligen la alternativa más adecuada dependiendo de sus requisitos y/o siguiendo las recomendaciones ya preestablecidas en la estructura del árbol. La construcción del árbol la lleva a cabo un experto en usabilidad y puede ser utilizado en reiteradas ocasiones, generando así diversas alternativas de diseño de interfaz de usuario. La tesis presenta el trabajo relacionado en tres áreas: elicitación de requisitos de usabilidad, uso de guías de usabilidad e ingeniería empírica de software. / [CA] La investigació desenvolupada en aquesta tesi representa un marc nou per a capturar requisits d'usabilitat durant el desenvolupament d'un sistema programari. Aquests requisits, estan representats com a alternatives de dissenys d'Interfícies d'Usuari (IU). L'objectiu és desenvolupar un procés de captura de requisits d'usabilitat basat en entrevistes estructurades amb el suport d'una eina que ajude a resoldre problemes com: (1) l'omissió de la usabilitat des de les primeres etapes de desenvolupament, en general, les característiques d'usabilitat només es tenen en compte en dissenyar les interfícies en les últimes etapes de desenvolupament; (2) resulta tediós la captura de requisits per a analistes que no són experts en usabilitat; (3) els mètodes i eines que s'utilitzen per a desenvolupar programari no admeten l'elicitació de requisits d'usabilitat. A partir d'aquests problemes trobats en la literatura es defineixen les preguntes d'investigació: És possible capturar requisits d'usabilitat en etapes inicials de desenvolupament al mateix temps que els requisits funcionals? Per a respondre a aquesta pregunta, la tesi ha definit un mètode d'elicitació de requisits d'usabilitat anomenat UREM (per les seues sigles en anglés, Usability Requirements Elicitation Method) i ha proposat un mètode per a tractar-lo dins d'entorns MDD. El desenvolupament d'aquest treball de recerca s'ha dut a terme seguint la metodologia Design Science. Aquesta metodologia considera dos cicles: el primer cicle és un cicle d'enginyeria en el qual es dissenya un mètode per a incloure requisits d'usabilitat durant el procés d' elicitació de requisits. El segon cicle correspon a la validació del mètode proposat mitjançant una avaluació empírica dins d'un context acadèmic. La proposta de captura de requisits d'usabilitat mitjançant UREM consisteix en la definició d'una estructura d'un arbre on les guies d'usabilitat i les guies de disseny d'IU estan emmagatzemades. L'arbre es defineix com un graf connectat sense cicles i una arrel; compost de 4 elements: pregunta, resposta, grup de preguntes i disseny. Les preguntes i les alternatives de disseny (respostes) són extretes de les guies d'usabilitat i de disseny, i marquen el camí pel qual l'analista navega fins a arribar als nodes fulla que són els dissenys de la interfície d'usuari que s'han aconseguit durant el procés de captura de requisits d'usabilitat. Són els usuaris finals els qui trien l'alternativa més adequada depenent dels seus requisits i/o seguint les recomanacions ja preestablides en l'estructura de l'arbre. La construcció de l'arbre la duu a terme un expert en usabilitat i pot ser utilitzat en reiterades ocasions, generant així diverses alternatives de disseny d'interfície d'usuari. La tesi presenta el treball relacionat en tres àrees: elicitació de requisits d'usabilitat, ús de guies d'usabilitat i enginyeria empírica de programari. / [EN] The research developed in this thesis represents a novel framework for capturing usability requirements during the development of a software system. These requirements are represented as alternative User Interface (UI) designs. The objective is to develop a usability requirements capture process based on structured interviews with the support of a tool that helps solve problems such as: (1) the omission of usability from the early stages of development, in general, the characteristics of Usability is only taken into account when designing interfaces in the later stages of development; (2) it is tedious to capture requirements for analysts who are not usability experts; (3) the methods and tools used to develop software do not support the elicitation of usability requirements. Based on these problems found in the literature, the research questions are defined: Is it possible to capture usability requirements in initial stages of development at the same time as functional requirements? To answer this question, the thesis has defined a usability requirements elicitation method called UREM (Usability Requirements Elicitation Method) and has proposed a method to treat it within MDD environments. The development of this research work has been carried out following the Design Science methodology. This methodology considers two cycles: the first cycle is an engineering cycle in which a method is designed to include usability requirements during the requirements elicitation process. The second cycle corresponds to the validation of the proposed method through an empirical evaluation within an academic context. The proposal to capture usability requirements through UREM consists of the definition of a tree structure where the usability guides and UI design guides are stored. The tree is defined as a connected graph without cycles and a root; composed of 4 elements: question, answer, group of questions and design. The questions and design alternatives (answers) are extracted from the usability and design guides, and mark the path along which the analyst navigates until reaching the leaf nodes, which are the user interface designs that have been achieved. during the usability requirements capture process. It is the end users who choose the most appropriate alternative depending on their requirements and/or following the recommendations already pre-established in the tree structure. The construction of the tree is carried out by a usability expert and can be used repeatedly, thus generating various user interface design alternatives. The thesis presents related work in three areas: usability requirements elicitation, use of usability guides, and empirical software engineering. / This work has been developed with the support of MICINN (PROS-Req TIN2010-19130-C02- 02), UV (UV-INV-PRECOMP13-115032), GVA (ORCA PROMETEO/2009/015), and cofinanced with ERDF. We also acknowledge the support of the Intra European Marie Curie Fellowship Grant 50911302 PIEF-2010. We acknowledge also the support from the National University of San Antonio Abad of Cusco under the program Yachayninchis Wiñarinanpaq CONCYTEC and FONDECYT, the support of Generalitat Valenciana with CoMoDID (CIPROM/2021/023) and GENI (CIAICO/2022/229), as well as the support of the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation co-financed by FEDER in the project SREC (PID2021-123824OB-I00) / Ormeño Ayala, YI. (2023). Marco para la captura de requisitos de usabilidad en entornos de MDD [Tesis doctoral]. Universitat Politècnica de València. https://doi.org/10.4995/Thesis/10251/202630 / Compendio

This project consisted of the development of a web based participant database system to replace a spreadsheet based one for the project “Vi Ses! Språkvänner i Linköping” and the evaluation of it. The design and implementation was done iteratively using a collection of usability guidelines as well as the results of a set of user tests. User tests were also used for the evaluation of the web database system. The task during the user tests was participant matching and the main measurement taken was task completion time. The project resulted in a web database system that could fully replace the spreadsheet database system. The evaluation tests showed that this system was both faster to match participants in as well as less error prone. / Detta projekt bestod av utvecklingen och evalueringen av ett webbaserat databassystem för deltagare. Den skulle ersätta ett existerande Excel-baserat databassystem för projektet “Vi Ses! Språkvänner i Linköping”. Designen och implementationen gjordes iterativt med hjälp av användbarhetsriktlinjer och resultat från användartester. Användartester användes även för evalueringen av webbdatabassystemet. Uppgiften i användartesterna var deltagarmatchning och det huvudsakliga mätvärdet var hur lång tid uppgiften tog. Projektet resulterade i ett webbaserat databassystem som helt kunde ersätta det Excel-baserade systemet. Evalueringstesterna visade att systemet var både snabbare och mindre felbenäget att matcha deltagare i.