2008/08/27 by Willem‐Paul Brinkman, Reinder Haakma, D.G. Bouwhuis · 17 citations
Computer Science · #Advanced Software Engineering Methodologies #Cognitive walkthrough #Component (thermodynamics) #Component-based usability testing #Computer science #Data mining #Heuristic evaluation #Human–computer interaction #Measure (data warehouse) #Multimedia #Software Engineering Techniques and Practices #Software engineering #USable #Usability #Usability and User Interface Design #Usability engineering #Usability goals #Usability inspection #Usability lab #Web usability
paper · doi:10.1109/tsmca.2008.2001056
published in IEEE Transactions on Systems Man and Cybernetics - Part A Systems and Humans 38(5), 1143-1155 (Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers)
openalex publication_date 2008/08/27 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
This paper presents the results of a meta-analysis carried out on the results of six experiments to support the claim that component-specific usability measures are on average statistically more powerful than overall usability measures when comparing different versions of a part of a system. An increase in test effectiveness implies the need for fewer participants in usability tests that study different versions of a component. Three component-specific measures are presented and analyzed: an objective efficiency measure and two subjective measures, one about the ease-of-use and the other about the users' satisfaction. Whereas the subjective measures are obtained with a questionnaire, the objective efficiency measure is based on the number of user messages received by a component. Besides describing the testing method, this paper also discusses the underlying principles such as layered interaction and multiple negative-feedback loops. The main contribution of the work described is the presentation of component-based usability testing as an alternative for traditional holistic-oriented usability tests. The former is more aligned with the component-based software engineering approach, helping engineers to select the most usable versions of a component.