Presentation
Live or Let Die: MILSTD 1472 Type Usability Checklists in an Agile Development World
DescriptionThe main objective of this practitioner case study is to demonstrate the efficacy of usability checklists in an agile development world with automatic intelligent checking methods. Traditional Human System Integration (HSI) processes are at risk of being eliminated given the industry driven velocity and continuous delivery methods of Agile and Development to Operations Engineering (DevOps) [1]. The fundamental goal of DevOps is to shorten the systems software development life cycle from Development to Operations. It boasts a principle of continuous integration and continuous delivery (CI/CD) with smaller updates to the deployed products. In an Agile DevOps environment, the typical delivery of products is 2 weeks with some software products boasting deployments every 11 minutes [2]. One such process at risk of being eliminated is usability standard checklists like MIL-STD 1472. This candidate abstract describes one practitioner team’s case study which incorporated usability heuristics and automatic intelligent checking methods to support usability experts by affording them with the ability to keep pace with the high velocity pipelines of software development in an Agile DevOps environment.
The DoD Design Criteria Standard - Human Engineering, or MIL-STD 1472 is a military standard that provides guidelines for the ergonomic design of military systems and equipment. It leverages Human Factors expert research and development criteria to eliminate well known problems. It is primarily focused on ensuring that military systems are designed to optimize human performance, safety, and comfort. However, it can be time consuming to use given that it contains over 4400 items in its entirety. Incorporation of usability and rigorous human factors checklists in the design of products using a DevOps environment is a challenge given the shorter timelines and smaller increments between product development and deployment combined with the expertise and hours needed to execute the checklists [1]. Industry standard methods in agile engineering utilize heuristics for quick turn, low-cost usability inspections. This paper describes the derivation of a set of usability heuristics based on MIL-STD 1472 which can be used to identify potential human factors issues more quickly, with less cost, and reduced amount of expertise required.
Automatic Usability Testing - There is a need to re-check items to make sure new features have not created new usability issues or checklist violations. This is called regressive testing and coupled with the shorter 2 week delivery cycles in an Agile environment this exacerbates the Human Factors Engineering problem. A method for automated usability testing or checklist verification is desired to reduce efforts of recursive testing. This paper describes an example of automatic checking being used to support usability experts and allow them to keep pace with the high velocity pipelines of software development in an Agile DevOps environment.
The DoD Design Criteria Standard - Human Engineering, or MIL-STD 1472 is a military standard that provides guidelines for the ergonomic design of military systems and equipment. It leverages Human Factors expert research and development criteria to eliminate well known problems. It is primarily focused on ensuring that military systems are designed to optimize human performance, safety, and comfort. However, it can be time consuming to use given that it contains over 4400 items in its entirety. Incorporation of usability and rigorous human factors checklists in the design of products using a DevOps environment is a challenge given the shorter timelines and smaller increments between product development and deployment combined with the expertise and hours needed to execute the checklists [1]. Industry standard methods in agile engineering utilize heuristics for quick turn, low-cost usability inspections. This paper describes the derivation of a set of usability heuristics based on MIL-STD 1472 which can be used to identify potential human factors issues more quickly, with less cost, and reduced amount of expertise required.
Automatic Usability Testing - There is a need to re-check items to make sure new features have not created new usability issues or checklist violations. This is called regressive testing and coupled with the shorter 2 week delivery cycles in an Agile environment this exacerbates the Human Factors Engineering problem. A method for automated usability testing or checklist verification is desired to reduce efforts of recursive testing. This paper describes an example of automatic checking being used to support usability experts and allow them to keep pace with the high velocity pipelines of software development in an Agile DevOps environment.
Event Type
Lecture
TimeWednesday, September 11th11:55am - 12:15pm MST
LocationFLW Salon D
Usability and System Evaluation