A Controlled Experiment for Measuring the Usability of Webapps Using Patterns

Usability has become a critical quality factor of software systems in general, and especially important regarding Web-based applications. Measuring quality is the key to developing high-quality software, and it is widely recognised that quality assurance of software products must be assessed focusing on the early stages of the development process. This paper describes a controlled experiment carried out in order to corroborate whether the patterns associated to a quality model are closely related to the final Web application quality. The experiment is based on the definition of a quality model and the patterns associated to its quality criteria to prove that applications developed using these patterns improve its usability in comparison with other ones developed without using them. The results of this experiment demonstrate that the use of these patterns really improves the quality of the final Web application in a high degree. The experiment is formally based on the recommendations of the ISO 9126-4.