Are engineers condemned to design? A survey on software engineering and UI design in Switzerland

Abstract

In this paper we present the results of a descriptive online survey conducted among Swiss software developers regarding their engineering practices with a special focus on the design and development of user interfaces. This enables an insight into the everyday life of a software engineer and can lead usability practitioners, project managers and clients to a better level of cooperation in designing user interfaces through understanding how software engineers work. While software is developed and tested in a professional way, several problem areas were detected: firstly, software engineers frequently develop user interfaces alone, without the help of Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) professionals. Secondly, they have a limited knowledge of HCI. Thirdly, whilst they have contact to end users, they do not make use of this for user interface design. Finally, usability tests are rare and seldom result in big changes. © IFIP International Federation for Information Processing 2007.