Abstract
The usability of information systems (IS) is a key characteristic in the context of software selection and IS design. IS are supposed to support various functions in business organizations in an effective and efficient way, to be easy to use and easy to learn, and to produce satisfactory outcomes for users. Research has sought to engineer IS based on automated usability checks, but while the concept of process mining offers considerable potential in this context, so far only little research has been done on the potential of process mining approaches for automating analyses of IS usability. We describe the journeys through and the results of several design research projects that have investigated the potential of combining process mining approaches and usability engineering (i.e., usability mining). The design artifacts presented in this study elucidate the potential of usability mining in the context of usability studies, focusing on mobile policing applications developed and used in several projects in Germany. We present a dedicated reference framework for the design of usability mining solutions and a software implementation that we use to illustrate the artifacts’ applications in the mobile policing scenario. We present the results of several design projects in which we gathered experience concerning usability mining and its application in real-world scenarios. While the development of a usability mining solution can be managed according to certain design recommendations, data preparation and data cleansing present particular challenges in usability mining endeavors.
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Acknowledgments
The research described in this chapter was supported in part by a grant from the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (Bundesministerium für Bildung und Forschung, BMBF), project name: “RUMTIMe: Real-Time Usability Improvement based on Process Mining,” supported by the Software Campus Initiative. The research was also supported in part by a grant from the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research, project name: “ProPlanE—Echtzeit-Process-Mining in der Produktionsplanung mit Kundenbezug,” support code FKZ S01IS16040A. The authors of this chapter thank Matthias Adams for supporting the development and furthermore all project partners for their cooperation. Our special thanks go to all involved ministries and police authorities in Saarland and Rhineland-Palatinate, Accenture Deutschland GmbH, Avanade Deutschland GmbH, icomedias GmbH and Microsoft Deutschland GmbH.
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Dadashnia, S., Houy, C., Loos, P. (2020). Usability Mining. In: vom Brocke, J., Hevner, A., Maedche, A. (eds) Design Science Research. Cases. Progress in IS. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-46781-4_7
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