Improving the distributed evolution of software through heuristic evaluation

Abstract

In order to create the increasingly complex software systems needed to deal with today's technological challenges, we must be able to build on previous work. However, existing software solutions are quite often not an exact fit. Software developers have found multiple ways of approaching the problem of designing software that can be adapted as well as otherwise changed; Most of this effort has been aimed at the structural properties of the software, by creating open-architecture systems. However, there are still significant usability hurdles to overcome. A developer-oriented evaluation of open architecture interfaces could help meet some of these challenges. In this thesis, I present a set of guidelines for designing a developer-oriented interface for software open architectures, developed through a survey of several related fields. I use these guidelines to design and implement an interface to the Maritime Open Architecture Autonomy, one such software framework. Finally, through two case studies, I demonstrate the usefulness of these guidelines as the basis of a low cost method of usability evaluation. Study observations and limitations are presented, as well as suggestions for further research into heuristic evaluation.