Evaluating Procurement, Usability and Off-the-Shelf Office Software

• Off-the-shelf office software has lately been receivingincreasing attention in Sweden. This experience reportillustrate different perspectives on a usability evaluation ofthe procurement process and the off-the-shelf softwaresystem. This study was part of a long-term action researchproject in a large government organization. Data wascollected through documents, interviews, and participatoryobservations. This paper describes how the usabilityevaluation was carried out, how the context of the usabilityevaluation changed during these weeks and finally discussand interpret why the stakeholders experienced theevaluation as useful. The usability evaluation was found tobe very useful by stakeholders from the organization,whereas the usability expert as well as our research grouphad difficulties in seeing the usefulness. Findings indicatean agenda that was revealed late in the project as one of themain reason for the importance of the evaluation. Also atrue belief in the perfection of the off-the-shelf officesoftware and a somewhat different view of what usability ismight explain the downstream utility.

Subject headings

NATURVETENSKAP  -- Data- och informationsvetenskap (hsv//swe)

NATURAL SCIENCES  -- Computer and Information Sciences (hsv//eng)

NATURVETENSKAP  -- Data- och informationsvetenskap -- Datavetenskap (hsv//swe)

NATURAL SCIENCES  -- Computer and Information Sciences -- Computer Sciences (hsv//eng)

Keyword

Usability evaluation

use cases

software development

procurement

off-the-shelf software.

Computer science

Publication and Content Type

ref (subject category)

kon (subject category)