11fish
commented
6 years ago Lack of attention to usability means a new learning curve any time a practitioner moves to a new package. Lack of user testing along the way means that the learning curve is often steeper than it needs to be. Attention to usability improves productivity. Training in and use of user testing techniques should be part of the software development process.
Discussion topic: How to train for and incorporate software usability in best practices for developing research software. Brief description of issue/challenge: Usability is critical to building a community of users, and important in reducing the costs of software maintenance. All software, even those with no end-user interface, has usability concerns. The best practices for achieving good usability -- user research, incremental prototyping, user testing, etc. -- are distinct from traditional software engineering best practices, and often treated as an "art" for specialized practitioners, not a skill that can be learned. How can we raise awareness of the existence of usability practices, and how can we include these practices in existing training? How to include the time/effort for making usable software in grant proposals? How can more usable software be recognized and rewarded? When are usability practices most appropriate for research software? Lead/moderator: Links to resources: Summary of usability principles for research (scientific) software