Analyzing a Socio-Technical Visualization Tool Using Usability Inspection Methods

Ariadne is a novel visualization tool that allows end users to explore the socio-technical relationships in software development projects. Essentially the visualization is a variant of a social network graph. It is based on the observation that dependencies between software components create dependencies between the developers implementing those components. This relationship emerged in our own and other researchers' field studies of software projects. Large software development projects require management of dependencies by managers and developers to ensure the smooth coordination of work. We sought to evaluate our visualization to assess its utility. Although we had some informal trials with potential end users, we sought a deeper analysis before further refinement of the tool and evaluation on a larger scale. Usability inspection methods provided one potential avenue. Moreover, such inspection methods yield a kind of rationale not directly derived from human subjects evaluations. We report on the application of these inspection methods and discuss the implications of their results in the context of usability evaluations for visual interfaces.