Impacto do suporte metodológico e ferramental orientado a aspectos de usabilidade no ensino prático da engenharia de software.

Abstract

Traditionally, Software Engineering (SE) has prioritized the development and application of methodological and tooling support with major focus in functional and planning aspects of software development. This behavior has been reflected in SE teaching where aspects associated with software usability are addressed in a secondary plan, in general. Despite efforts to integrate SE with Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) area, aiming to offer procedures for minimal interface usability treatment, is not rare to find students reporting difficulties in production, comprehension and use of these resources properly. It is desirable that the SE laboratory approach be completed addressing both functional and usability issues. The Laboratory of Software Engineering discipline at Federal University of Campina Grande (UFCG) improved the agile development process easYProcess to turn it to be user-centered, by adding usability artifacts to its production. Difficulties have been detected with students during the production and use of these artifacts. This work investigated which benefits the inclusion of an interface conception methodology, based on task analysis and supported by a software tool, may provide to software laboratory, in which the UFCG graduation environment was adopted as referential.