Following up the tradition established in the I-USED (International Workshop on the Interplay
between Usability Evaluation and Software Development) series of workshops, this workshop is aimed
at bringing together Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) and Software Engineering (SE) professionals and
researchers interested in discussing recent trends and perspectives of the role of usability in software
development. With respect to I-USED, I-UxSED will extend its scope to target the broader concept of
User Experience (UX) in software development.
This change of focus was mainly motivated due to recent advances in mobile, ubiquitous, social, and
tangible computing technologies that has moved HCI into practically all areas of human activity. This
has led to a shift away from usability engineering to a much richer scope of user experience where
user's emotions, affects, motivations, and values are given as much, if not more, attention than ease
of use, ease of learning and basic subjective satisfaction (i.e., the three traditional usability
metrics). To accommodate the shift, design and evaluation approaches need to respond in a way that
is sensitive to increasingly diverse use contexts, user goals and roles, and new interaction
styles
(Břdker, 2006).
Among others, four challenges engendered by the new focus of UX are particularly relevant to software
development: (i) definition of UX; (ii) modeling of UX; (iii) selection and application of UX evaluation
methods; (iv) interplay between UX evaluation feedback and software development. The first three issues
have significant impacts on their fourth one – the theme of this proposed workshop.
The concept of UX is commonly understood as subjective, context-dependent and dynamic
(Law et al., 2009). A formal definition of UX issued by ISO 9241-210:
2010 - A person’s perceptions and responses that result from the use and/or anticipated use of a product, system or service –suggests that UX can be
measured in a way similar to the behavioral and attitudinal metrics of usability. Different attempts
have been undertaken to demarcate or even dismiss the boundary between usability and user experience
at the conceptual as well as operational level. A significant implication of this definitional issue
is what can be considered as valid measures of UX, which enable professionals to benchmark competitive
design artefacts and to select right design options.
Modelling users’ experience - as a basis for producing design guidance - is especially important. First,
measurement models are required to provide a sound basis for UX measures with desirable properties
(e.g. reliability, validity, sensitivity). Second, structural models are needed for the purpose of
understanding, predicting and reasoning about processes of UX with consequences for software design.
Despite some visible progress
(e.g. Hassenzahl, 2004), a number of issues pertaining to UX modelling
remain to be resolved
(Law & van Schaik, in press).
These issues are closely related to the development of guidelines for selecting UX evaluation methods
and an associated set of measures to meet requirements specific to the context of interest. Recently,
research efforts have been undertaken to collect, consolidate and categorize UX evaluation methods
(e.g. Roto et al., 2009). It is envisaged that taxonomies of UX qualities, which can facilitate the
selection of UX methods and measures, will come to fruition from these ongoing endeavours.
Presumably, the work pertinent to the three challenges (i.e. defining UX, modelling UX, and selecting
UX methods) can contribute to the resolution of the fourth one (i.e. interplay between UX evaluation
and system development), which, is only explored to a limited extent.
