Reusable knowledge for satisficing usability requirements

Usability is becoming increasingly recognized as being an important factor in the acceptance of systems by end users. There is a basic need for systematic approaches to reason, model and analyze usability from the early stages of software development. Furthermore, it is necessary to develop a usable ontology or classification of measurable aspects that can be used to aid in the specification of usability requirements. These ontologies should be represented in a way that facilitates their use as guidelines for the requirements elicitation process. This work builds on review of literature in the area of human-computer interaction and the emerging field of usability engineering in developing a catalog of aspects of usability that can be considered during requirements gathering. This catalogue is used to guide the requirements engineer through alternatives for achieving usability for information systems. The approach uses i* framework, having usability modeled as a special type of goal.