Usability evaluation of a collaborative design software in the wild
Dalma Geszten, Balázs Péter Hámornik, Károly Hercegfi · 2019
Software evaluation has several forms: it can take place in controlled or naturalistic settings with low or high researcher control. A field study is performed in a naturalistic setting, with no researcher control. The main value of a field study that it provides an understanding of software usage in real life working and organizational context. Understanding the context is especially important in the case of collaborative software. This paper aims to make a contribution by introducing a field study of a collaborative design software. First, related literature about field studies and field studies of collaborative software will be discussed. Then the method will be presented in details. The software evaluation took place in a Hungarian software development company. Two User Interface designers participated in the study. Observation, field notes and an interview constitute the data which was analyzed based on the mechanics of collaboration framework. After the demonstration of the results, the usability of the collaborative design software will be discussed.