Using interaction requirements to operationalize usability
Holger Röder · 2010
In the context of today's software development, usability is often seen as a fuzzy concept: although considered important for the overall success of a software product, usability is not taken into account systematically during development, and effective human-computer interaction design depends in many cases on the whim of individual developers. This paper presents INSPIRE, a pragmatic approach to operationalizing particular usability facets by specifying interaction requirements. Interaction elements of a use case-based functional specification are identified and categorized. Based on this categorization, matching interaction attributes, i.e. patterns of interaction design, are selected from a library of interaction attributes known to improve usability, and are further refined to meet the specific software functionality, user profiles, and context of use. The resulting interaction requirements are both realizable and testable, thus operationalizing usability in a way that allows developers to consider usability aspects explicitly during software design, implementation and test.