Usability Engineer

Definition

Usability Engineer

a programmer that implements the software human interfaces of one or more systems or applications

Classification

As illustrated in the preceding figure, Usability Engineer is part of the following inheritance hierarchy:

• Type: Concrete
• Superclass: Engineer
• Subclasses:
  • None

Responsibilities

Usability engineers typically have the following role-specific responsibilities:

• Implement the human interfaces (e.g., GUIs).
• Optimize the human interface to the platform (i.e., hardware, operating system, and browser).
• Collaborate with the programmers.

Usability engineers typically inherit the general role responsibilities from the role method component.

Expertise

To fulfill these responsibilities, usability engineers typically should have the following expertise, training, and experience:

• Ability to integrate visual and verbal content.
• Technology skills:
  • Hypertext Markup Language (HTML), Dynamic HTML (DHTML), and Cascading Style Sheets (CSS)
  • Extensible Markup Language (XML)
  • Scalable Vector Graphics
  • Java, C++, and Perl
  • CGI Scripts, JavaScript, and VBScript
  • Audio and video streaming technologies
  • ASP and JSP
• A bachelor’s degree or better in software engineering, computer science, graphic design, or the equivalent.

Tasks

Usability engineers typically perform the following role-specific tasks in an iterative, incremental, parallel, and time-boxed manner:

• Design Tasks:
  • Design Prototyping of the human interface software components.
• Implementation Tasks:
  • Programming of the human interface software components.
  • Debugging of the human interface software components.
  • Implementation Reuse of reusable human interface software components.
• Quality Control:
  • Quality Control - Requirements Evaluation
  • Quality Control - Architecture Evaluation

Usability engineers typically inherit common role tasks from the role process component.

Teams

Usability engineers typically perform these tasks as members of the following teams:

• User Interface Team
• SoftwareDevelopment Team
• Inspection Teams:
  • Requirements Inspection Team
  • Architecture Inspection Team

Work Products

As members of these teams, usability engineers typically produce all or part of the following work products:

• Design Works Products:
  • Human Interface Prototype
• Implementation Works Products:
  • Software Components (User Interface)
• Quality Work Products:
  • Inspection Report
  • Inspection Summary Report

Guidelines

• There is no need for this role if there are no software human interfaces (e.g., when developing certain embedded applications).
• This role is critical if there are significant software human interfaces.
• This role typically inherits the common team guidelines from the roles process component.