Evaluation of Usage-Based Reading―Conclusions after Three Experiments

摘要

Software inspections have been introduced in software engineering in order to detect faults before testing is performed. Reading techniques provide reviewers in software inspections with guidelines on how they should check the documents under inspection. Several reading techniques with different purposes have been introduced and empirically evaluated. In this paper, we describe a reading technique with the special aim to detect faults that are severe from a user's point of view. The reading technique is named usage-based reading (UBR) and it can be used to inspect all software artefacts. In the series of experiments, a high-level design document is used. The main focus of the paper is on the third experiment, which investigates the information needed for UBR in the individual preparation and the meeting of software inspections. Hence, the paper discusses (1) the series of three experiments of UBR, (2) the individual preparation of the third experiment, and (3) the meeting part of the third experiment. For each of these three parts, results are produced. The main results are (1) UBR is an efficient and effective reading technique that can be used for user-focused software inspections, (2) UBR is more efficient and effective if the information used for UBR is developed prior to, instead of during the individual preparation, and (3) the meeting affects the UBR inspection in terms of increased effectiveness and decreased efficiency. In summary, the empirical evidence shows that UBR is an efficient and effective reading technique to be used by software organizations that produce software for which the user perceived quality is important.