Studies

UXLERIS group has expertise in conducting experimental and empirical studies involving end-users and professionals of the software engineering area. Some details the studies we have developed are available below.

Project:  Linking User Stories to UX elements –  Recommendations to Reduce the Virtual Navigational Distances

Abstract: Agile practices are approaches widely used in industrial settings. User Stories (USs) are valuable artefacts to agile teams, being a succinct description of a requirement with its details complemented by other artefacts. User eXperience (UX) is an important cross-cutting quality requirement that has gained spotlight over the past years. The usage of virtual tools and artefact-based communication is common to all team members, whether they are co-located or not. However, little is known about how UX information and USs are related in agile virtual tools. This project presents an investigation of the navigational distances between UX information and USs in virtual tools. The investigation was performed through a case study in a software company where we analyzed 13 requirement documents of three different industry projects and the USs derived from them. As a result, we propose a classification for navigational distances found among UX information and USs and for the efforts required to perform the navigation between artefacts in virtual tools. We also propose templates to get a better arrangement to link  UX information and USs in virtual tools, considering the navigational distance and effort classifications.

Apparatus of the study:  Available here

Papers published:

  • CLETO FILHO, A.;ZAINA, L.  (2020). Navigational Distances between UX Information and User Stories in Agile Virtual Environments. In Proceedings of the 22nd International Conference on Enterprise Information Systems – Volume 2: ICEIS, ISBN 978-989-758-423-7, pages 185-192. DOI: 10.5220/0009354801850192. (link)

Project: Adding Usability Requirements to the Writing of User Stories for e-Learning applications

Abstract: The software development for e-learning has become increasingly complex. User Stories (US) are artifacts widely used in the conception phase of the software. This project presents an approach, named UsaUSe to support developers in the writing of US that addresses usability requirements in the e-learning domain. UsaUSe extends the grammar proposed by Cohn and includes the use of usability guidelines and HCI artefacts to aid in the building of the USs. An experimental study was conducted with 19 participants that evaluated positively the use of the approach. The results also revealed that the usability guidelines for e-learning are an important tool for specifying usability aspects into the US.

Apparatus of the study: Available here (in Portuguese)

Papers published:

  • LOPES, L. A.; PINHEIRO, E. ; SILVA, T. ; ZAINA, L. . Requisitos de usabilidade para softwares aplicados ao e-learning: uma proposta para elaboração de User Stories. In: XXX Simpósio Brasileiro de Informática na Educação (Brazilian Symposium on Computers in Education), 2019, Brasília,  p. 1121-1130. (link)
  • LOPES, L. A.; PINHEIRO, E. G.; SILVA, T. S; ZAINA, L. A. M.  Using UxD artefacts to support the writing of user stories: findings of an empirical study with agile developers. In: Proceedings of the 19th International Conference on Agile Software Development Companion – XP ’18. New York: ACM Press, 2018. p. 1-4. (link)
  • LOPES, L. A.; PINHEIRO, E. G.; SILVA, T. S; ZAINA, L. A. M. Adding human interaction aspects in the writing of User Stories: a perspective of software developers. In: Proceedings of the 31st Brazilian Symposium on Software Engineering, p. 194-203, Fortaleza, 2017.(link)

Project: AccessGuide – recommendations for mitigating accessibility barriers when using user interface design patterns in mobile applications

Abstract: User Interface Design Patterns (UIDP) are a collection of user interface elements that are widely applied by designers and developers in software development. Frequently, they are seen as good practices in software engineering. Each UIDP represents a solution to a commonly occurring problem and contains a description or template for how to solve that problem. However, the developer can end up introducing accessibility issues when applying these patterns. In this project, we present a catalogue, called AccessGuide, with recommendations of how to use UIDP to mitigate or eliminate such accessibility barriers during the design of user interfaces to mobile applications. Our recommendations were created from a study of issues that developers and designers faced to use the patterns. We explored 18 virtual communities of mobile design and development and then elaborated the catalogue. We evaluated the acceptance and the use of the catalogue in a study with 60 developers.

Apparatus of the study: Available here (in English and in Portuguese)

AccessGuide Catalogue

Papers published:

  • NOZAKI, L. ; ZAINA, L. . Recomendações de design universal para uso de Mobile User Interface Design Patterns. In: XVIII Simpósio Brasileiro de Fatores Humanos em Sistemas Computacionais, 2019, Vitória. Anais Estendidos do Simpósio Brasileiro de Fatores Humanos em Sistemas Computacionais (IHC). Porto Alegre: Sociedade Brasileira de Computação – SBC, 2019. p. 23-24. (Best Poster Award) (link)
  • CASADEI, V.; GRANOLLERS, T.; ZAINA, L. A. M. Investigating accessibility issues of UI mobile design patterns in online communities: a virtual ethnographic study. In: XVI Simpósio Brasileiro sobre Fatores Humanos em Sistemas Computacionais, 2017, Joinville. (draft) (final version)

Project: Information Visualization for e-learning

Abstract: Este relatório técnico apresenta uma proposta de visualização de informação cujo objetivo é acompanhar a evolução dos alunos nas atividades de Pensamento Computacional. Com base nos fundamentos do Learning Analytics, InfoVis e usabilidade, e orientada pelas premissas do design centrado no usuário, a proposta foi construída e refinada com a participação de usuários-alvo. Os resultados da avaliação do protótipo funcional revelam uma grande aceitação da proposta de visualização na perspectiva dos usuários finais – professores do ensino fundamental. Este projeto de Iniciação Científica foi financiado pelo Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico – CNPq.

Technical Report: