Usability evaluation in a digitally emerging country: A survey study

Abstract

Several emerging countries experience increasing software development activities. With the purpose of provide useful feedback on possible courses of action for increasing application of usability evaluation in such countries, this paper explores the status of usability evaluation in a digitally emerging country. Our aim is to identifying common characteristics or behavioral patterns that could be compared with digitally advanced countries. We used an online survey answered by 26 software development organizations, which gave a snapshot of the application of usability evaluation in these organizations. We found many similarities with advanced countries, several completely new obstacles more connected with software development matters and a relatively positive improvement in the lack of "usability culture". These findings suggest good conditions to improve conduction of usability evaluations in digitally emerging countries. © 2013 Springer-Verlag.