Guest editorial Usability evaluation methods
Dominique L. Scapin, Tomas Berns · Behaviour and Information Technology · 1997
After the very successful Behaviour & Information Technology Special Issue on Usability Laboratorie s published in 1994, the need was felt to bring new material concerning usability, this time from the point of view of the methods for evaluating usability.The scope for this Special Issue was quite open.The term usability was used in its widest sense, as incorporating all aspects of the human-com puter interaction.There was no limitation in the type of evaluation methods considered (i.e.analytical and empirical methods, user performance testing, subjective evaluation, heuristics, prototype/full scale evaluations, discount evaluation, formal evaluation, methods for usability labs, methods in the ® eld etc.).Research papers were encouraged , as well as case studies focusing on methodologi cal aspects.Both full papers and short papers were welcome.One goal was to help readers to be able to understand better which methods are available, their advantages and their limitations.Examples of issues to be covered included which evaluation methods to use, when, at what cost, what can these methods achieve, what is the basis for such methods, have they been validated, have they been tested for usability, who are their potential users, etc. Examples of contributions suggested were state of the art reviews on evaluations methods, frameworks for comparison of methods and techniques, evaluation criteria for methods, description of methods, validation of methods, lessons learned from using evaluation methods, usability of evaluation methods, experimental comparisons of evaluation techniques, cost/bene® t analyses, relationship of methods with the software lifecycle, integration of methods with software engineering, CAUSE (Computer-Aided Usability Engineering) and software equipment for