Usability in software development company practices

The importance of adopting usability engineering methods in software development is eventually recognized by an increasing number of companies. However, several studies show that, in spite of the declared awareness of usability as an important software quality and the benefits reported in the literature, many companies still neglect in their development practices those activities that are essential to ensure that their products are usable and capable of generating a satisfying user experience. This paper describes the case of the project K-People, funded by “Regione Puglia”, in which usability engineering methods were employed in the development of a company web portal. It can be seen that the designers’ attitude completely changes once they directly experience how effective such methods really are in the design and development of quality software.