Case Study 4: Enhancing developer productivity by building a team dashboard visualization.
Process
We developed low-fi prototypes of a visual interface for illustrating source-code dependencies in a large software system. A user of the tool could identify, for instance, whom they should notify when they make a change that breaks downstream code. We conducted a usability inspection on the interface before testing it with our intended users, software developers.
We developed low-fi prototypes of a visual interface for illustrating source-code dependencies in a large software system. A user of the tool could identify, for instance, whom they should notify when they make a change that breaks downstream code. We conducted a usability inspection on the interface before testing it with our intended users, software developers.
After reviewing the findings from an ethnography conducted by another researcher on the team, I created a task analysis and led a cognitive walkthrough with the engineers and manager of the project.
Results
The cognitive walkthrough saved project time by catching common usability errors early, without using our limited pool of real users outside the research lab to do so. The new features identified were incorporated into a hi-fi prototype for the next round of evaluation with actual software developers. 20 of the 22 users in the next round used the grouping feature, but only 2 reported problems. Even then, they were able to complete the task successfully.
The cognitive walkthrough saved project time by catching common usability errors early, without using our limited pool of real users outside the research lab to do so. The new features identified were incorporated into a hi-fi prototype for the next round of evaluation with actual software developers. 20 of the 22 users in the next round used the grouping feature, but only 2 reported problems. Even then, they were able to complete the task successfully.