A Measurement Based Framework for Assessment of Usability-Centricness of Open Source Software Projects

Abstract

Free and open source software (POSS) developers tend to build feature-centric projects rather than following a user centred design, ignoring the necessity of usability inside the resulting product, ever since. As there are many reasons behind this, main cause can be attributed to the lack of awareness of usability from developers' point of view and little interaction of project stakeholders with Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) studies. In order to increase the usability hence the competitiveness of open source software applications, developers need to measure their usability activities within the project, and to conduct appropriate user centered design methodologies. In this paper, a measurement method that focuses on open source project is proposed based on the motivation to improve the usability of applications and increase the efficiency of communication and collaboration level of HCI experts and developers.