Hoegh & Jensen's main points - Essay Example

Hoegh and Jensen’s Main PointsHoegh and Jensen mainly tried to determine if software developers are aware of the real usability problems that exist in their software and if they can anticipate potential problems’ existence. Firstly, they created workshops and activities to determine the usability problems faced by the users of the software along with the problems that the software developers themselves thought to be crucial which users could encounter. Then these users were divided and assigned to different projects that were set up.

First the users’ reactions and the instances, when they got stuck using the software, were recorded which was followed by the listing of problems that the developers identified. It was planned to find out if there were mutual problems that the developers and users identified or there were differences in the identification and realization of diverse usability problems.Then the authors or rather arbitrators were appointed to carry out the procedures and analysis in order to determine what the software developers themselves think about the problems that exist in their software.

To identify the authentic usability problems, the developers were asked to list down the problems they thought could be hindering for the users. It was a basic plan to listen and account for both the sides, that is, the developers and the users, and then to merge the usability problems, issues and experiences further on to identify the true usability problems that both parties agreed upon to make the identification process easier for the developers.A certain type of diversity was kept to observe different results from the three different projects.

Variances were kept in one of the projects and a wider range of professionals were part of that project which just wanted to identify the main and serious problem of the software rather than all the problems to be identified as in its counterparts.There were completely unique and different results obtained from the tests that were carried out. One of the projects was mutually scrutinized by the developers and users, one of the projects lacked mutual identification of usability problems and another project had mutual identification however the developers overstated the usability problems that existed in it.

In the end, the final results suggested that there was not a complete understanding and analysis of problems by the developers of the software. It showed that much more usability problems existed in the usage of the software than what the developers thought of. It was also concluded that there was a different criteria presumed by the developers and users regarding usability problems, some problems that developers overlooked were recognized as problems by the users. But it is evident from the research that combining the usability problems acknowledged by the developers and the users it is easier for the software developers to identify the accurate and precise problems faced by the end users, therefore, making software development less harboring to problems.

Reference:-Behaviour and Information Technology, Vol. 27, No. 4, July-August 2008, 307-312. Hoegh, R.T and Jensen, J.J (Taylor Francis)