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An Empirical Study of Open Source Software Usability: The Industrial Perspective

Human-Computer Interaction 2015-12-01 v1

Abstract

Recent years have seen a sharp increase in the use of open source projects by common novice users; Open Source Software (OSS) is thus no longer a reserved arena for software developers and computer gurus. Although user-centered designs are gaining popularity in OSS, usability is still not considered as one of the prime objectives in many design scenarios. In this paper, we analyze industry users perception of usability factors, including understandability, learnability, operability and attractiveness, on OSS usability. The research model of this empirical study establishes the relationship between the key usability factors and OSS usability from industrial perspective. In order to conduct the study, a data set of 105 industry users is included. The results of the empirical investigation indicate the significance of the key factors for OSS usability.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1511.08844,
  title  = {An Empirical Study of Open Source Software Usability: The Industrial Perspective},
  author = {Arif Raza and Luiz Fernando Capretz and Faheem Ahmed},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1511.08844},
  year   = {2015}
}

Comments

arXiv admin note: text overlap with arXiv:1507.06882

R2 v1 2026-06-22T11:56:01.073Z