Collaborative Engineering of Usability Requirements

可用性是非功能需求(NFR)的一种基本类型，它指定软件系统必须多么容易、有效、防错和令人愉快，才能被人类用户使用。在现代软件工程项目中，可用性的重要性日益普遍。然而，由于可用性NFR的独特特征，软件开发团队在管理这种类型的NFR时经常遇到相当大的挑战，限制了他们为用户创建更成功的产品的能力。首先，可用性和用户交互是依赖于各种因素的复杂问题，需要多学科软件开发利益相关者的有效协作，而这通常很难实现。其次，迭代原型和用户研究等需要资源和技能的活动在识别、发展、验证和确认可用性NFR方面是不可或缺的。目前，在促进多学科协作和管理可用性NFR的迭代活动方面，几乎没有方法论和工具支持。*本研究计划的长期目标是通过在协作和迭代环境中调查、开发和部署可用性NFR管理的方法、模型和工具来解决这一差距。在接下来的五年里，本研究的目标是五个短期目标：(1)积累从业者关于可用性NFRS管理的知识；(2)构建一个分类和关于可用性“恶臭”的本体，作为讨论可用性概念的通用词汇；(3)创建一个支持多学科交流的可用性NFRS建模方案；(4)探索可用性NFRS识别和构建的半自动方法；(5)创建和评估一个可用性NFRS生命周期管理工具。为了实现这些目标，我们(我的学生和我)将与行业从业者密切合作，以衡量我们的发现在实践中的影响。这项研究是由我最近在支持软件利益相关者在严肃游戏和其他领域中关于可用性和用户体验问题的协作考虑的技术方面所做的工作的激励和扩展。*这项研究计划的结果将增加我们关于可用性NFR的理论和实践知识，扩大可用性工程的采用，特别是在可用性正在成为一个新兴问题的领域。这项研究得出的方法、模型和工具将直接使加拿大工业受益，使公司能够简化其可用性工程流程，并创造出更成功的产品。最后但并非最不重要的是，该研究项目将培训四名HQP，包括两名博士生和两名硕士研究生，使他们在实证研究和以用户为中心的设计和开发方面获得广泛的实践经验。

Usability is a fundamental type of non-functional requirements (NFRs) that specifies how easy, efficient, error-preventing, and pleasant a software system must be to be used by human users. The importance of usability is increasingly pervasive in the modern software engineering projects. Because of the unique characteristics of usability NFRs, however, software development teams often experience considerable challenges in managing this type of NFRs, limiting their ability in creating more successful products for their users. First, usability and user interaction are complex issues that rely on diverse factors that require effective collaboration from multidisciplinary software development stakeholders, which is usually difficult to achieve. Second, resource and skill-demanding activities such as iterative prototyping and user studies are indispensable in identification, evolution, verification, and validation of usability NFRs. There is currently little methodology and tool support in facilitating the multidisciplinary collaboration and the iterative activities in managing usability NFRs.******The long-term objective of this research program is to address this gap by investigating, developing, and deploying methods, models, and tools for usability NFRs management in collaborative and iterative environments. In the next five years, this research targets five short-term objectives: (1) accumulating practitioners' knowledge about usability NFRs management, (2) constructing a taxonomy and an ontology of usability “bad smells” as a common vocabulary for discussing usability concepts, (3) creating a usability NFRs modeling scheme to support multidisciplinary communication, (4) exploring semi-automated methods for usability NFRs identification and construction, and (5) creating and evaluating a usability NFRs lifecycle management tool. To achieve these objectives, we (my students and I) will work closely with industrial practitioners in order to measure the impact of our findings in practice. This research is motivated by and extends my recent work on techniques to support software stakeholders' collaborative consideration on usability and user experience issues in serious games and other domains.******The outcomes from this research program will increase our theoretical and practical knowledge about usability NFRs, broadening the adoption of usability engineering, especially in areas in which usability is becoming an emerging concern. The methods, models, and tools resulted from this research will directly benefit the Canadian industry, allowing companies to streamline their usability engineering process and create more successful products. Last but not least, this research program will train four HQPs, including two PhD and two Master students, allowing them to gain extensive hands-on experience in empirical research and user-centered design and development.