From the category archives:

Software Engineering

User-Interface and Design Evaluation

January 20, 2010

Evaluation is the process of systematically collecting data that informs us about what it is like for a particular user or group of users to use a product for a particular task in a certain type of environment. Evaluation is important because designers can’t presume that following design guidelines guarantees good usability.

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User-Centered Interaction Design

January 20, 2010

Design is a practical and creative activity where the intent is to develop a product that helps users achieve their goals. To develop a product we need to know: What is required of it? Who the users are? Will the users know what they need?

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Software Accessibility

January 20, 2010

Accessibility is making computer systems usable by those who have a disability so they are not disadvantaged over other users in any way. Most accessibility work is based on web-based software, as this is a public representation of a company. However, the general principles are applicable to all software development. Some issues are now mandated [...]

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How Interfaces Affect Users

January 20, 2010

The concern of software engineers is to investigate how interactive systems be designed to make people respond in certain ways. One way is to use expressive icons and other graphical elements to convey emotional states.

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The Mechanics of Interaction

January 20, 2010

Cognitive load theory (CLT) is an area of research that provide a solid theoretical foundation for guidelines for constructing e-learning content in a way that enhances learning. According to the theory, learning will be impaired if the learning content causes a cognitive overload, which is easy because the working memory has a very limited capacity.

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What Is Interaction Design?

January 20, 2010

Products need to be usable, meaning: easy to learn effective to use provide an enjoyable experience for users Designers need to understand what kind of activities people are doing when interacting with the products.

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An Introduction to Reverse Engineering

January 20, 2010

Reverse engineering is a process of analysing a subject system to identify the system’s components and their interrelationships and to create representations of the system in another form or at a higher level of abstraction.

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What Not To Do When Maintaining Software Applications

January 20, 2010

“Software maintenace: it’s a dirty job; but someone’s gotta do it” Anonymous Software Maintainer, 2010. Software maintenance is a task often off-loaded to junior developers, while in theory, the repercussions and difficulties associated with maintenance suggest it should be performed by the most capable of programmers. A skilled programmer can transform a project whereas a [...]

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Program Comprehension Strategies

January 18, 2010

Our understanding of something depends on our ability to form a mental representation, which serves as a working model. The concept of a thing being understood is termed the target system and its mental representation is termed a mental model. The completeness and accuracy of a model depends on the users information and experience.

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An Introduction to Program Comprehension

January 18, 2010

Program comprehension during software maintenance involves the acquisition of knowledge about programs, as well as accompanying documentation and operating procedures. The costs of performing program comprehension have been widely cited as being between 50-90% of overall cost of performing maintenance [Standish84], i.e. that much time is spent on understanding the code rather than just making [...]

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