This document summarizes a survey conducted on HCI considerations in the software development life cycle (SDLC) from the perspective of practitioners. The survey involved 32 software designers. The results found that while practitioners recognize the importance of user involvement, it primarily occurs during requirements analysis. HCI elements related to functionality are well addressed, but non-functional elements like cultural and emotional factors are not emphasized. It recommends further investigating user awareness of their importance throughout the SDLC.

1. A Survey on HCI Considerations in the Software
Development Life Cycle: from Practitioner’s
Perspective
Rogayah Abd Majid1
, Nor Laila Md Noor2
, Wan Adilah Wan Adnan3
, Suria Mansor4
Faculty of Computing & Mathematical Science, Universiti Teknologi MARA, Malaysia
rogayah@tmsk.uitm.edu.my1
, norlaila@tmsk.uitm.edu.my2
, adilah@tmsk.uitm.edu.my3
&
ummusuria@gmail.com
4
ABSTRACT
In the Human-computer interaction (HCI) literature, it has been
recommended that user involvement and HCI considerations in
the software development life cycle (SDLC) is an important
mechanism for a successful system implementation. However, it
is still unclear to what extend do the user involvement and HCI
consideration have been adopted by software development
practitioners. This paper reports the results of a survey on the
importance of HCI in SDLC from practitioner perspective. The
survey involves thirty two software designers. The objectives of
the study are to identify the state of user involvement in SDLC
and to identify the HCI elements that have been addressed.
Results have found that many of practitioners involve users in
SDLC, but majority are only during the requirement analysis
phase. The findings also reveal that HCI elements on functionality
are well addressed, however, the non-functionality elements such
as cultural and affective values have not been emphasized by
practitioners. The paper concludes with recommendation to
further investigate on user awareness on the importance of user
involvement in the software development.
Categories and Subject Descriptors
H.[Information System] – Models and Principles
Keywords
HCI in SDLC, User involvement, Human-centered SDLC.
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1. INTRODUCTION
Among many system development approaches, the system
development life cycle (SDLC) model is a commonly accepted
approach for describing the processes and issues involved in
system development [1]. In the development of information
system (IS), the SDLC approach focuses on system functionalities
[2] but recently the consideration is changed to user experience
[3]. Zhang et al.[3] argue that HCI consideration in SDLC is
critical, however it was not been emphasized by practitioners.
They argue that a new SDLC that emphasis on human-centred
approach is required to support user experience consideration.
They propose a new SDLC called Human Centered System
Development Life Cycle (HCSDLC)[4].
Prior HCI studies in Malaysia [5,6,7] were focused on user needs
and the demand of HCI from user perspective and not from
practitioner perspective. The study about the importance of HCI
consideration from practitioner’s perspective is still unknown in
Malaysia.
The purpose of this paper is to investigate the practice of HCI
approach in the SDLC among practitioners in Malaysia. The study
is focus on identifying the state of user involvement in SDLC and
examining to what extent the HCI elements have been addressed
in SDLC.
2. LITERATURE REVIEW
2.1 HCI Approach
The HCI approach focuses on human-machine interactions and
collaborations. It defines what a system should do from a user’s
perspective. It considers user’s constraints like physical,
cognitive, affective and behavioral. In addition their impact on
system development and use also need to be considered. HCI
development differentiates between the user’s responsibilities and
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2. the system’s responsibilities during user interaction with the
system and how users can interact with the system.
According to Hoffer et al [1] the current SDLC approach focuses
more on system functionalities and data requirements to meet
organizational needs. Extremely, HCI is concerned with how
systems can fit with user’s needs, lifestyles, and well being. To
develop information systems to meet both organizational and
individual needs, HCI concerns should be integrated in a unified
methodology for IS development. For this reason, Zhang et al. [4]
have proposed an approach that discovers HCI concerns and has
listed samples of measure items.
Table 1 is a description about HCI concerns consist of four major
areas which is physical, cognitive, affective and behavioural along
with their sample of measure items. These HCI concerns are
emphasized on non-functionality requirements analysis of
software development.
Table 1. HCI Concerns
HCI Concerns Description Sample Measure
Items
Physical
(ergonomic)
System fits our
physical
strengths and
limitations and
does not cause
harm to our
health.
Legible
Audible
Safe to use
Cognitive
(usability)
System fits our
cognitive
strengths and
limitations and
functions as the
cognitive
extensions of our
brain.
Fewer errors and easy
recovery
Easy to use
Easy to remember
how to use
Easy to learn
Affective,
Emotional
Intrinsically
Motivational
(pleasing and
enjoyable)
System satisfies
our aesthetic and
emotional needs,
and is attractive
for its own sake.
Aesthetically pleasing
Engaging,
Trustworthy
Satisfying
Enjoyable
Entertaining & Fun
Extrinsically
Motivational
(usefulness)
Using the system
would provide
rewording
consequences.
Support individual’s
tasks
2.2 HCI in SDLC
Zhang et al. [4] argue that HCI consideration in SDLC is critical,
however it was not been emphasized by software practitioners.
They argue that a new SDLC that emphasis on human-centred
approach is required to support user experience consideration. To
accommodate the human-centered approach they propose a new
SDLC called Human Centered System Development Life Cycle
(HCSDLC). Figure 1 shows the prominent framework of Human–
Centered Systems Development Life Cycle (HCSDLC) There are
four phases to be considered namely project selection and
planning, analysis, design and implementation as shown in Figure
1.
Figure 1. Human Centered System Development Life Cycle
(HCSDLC)
This framework emphasize on HCI consideration from top to
bottom stage which is different from the current SDLC viewed.
The collaboration between SDLC and HCI perspective is needed
to ensure the system development is success. However current
SDLC is concern too much on organizational needs (functionalist)
rather than human needs (physical and cognitive capabilities,
emotional needs, personality traits and situational factors). The
human need has been much less considered in SDLC so it often
occur a gap between satisfying organizational needs and achieving
human needs.
3. METHOD
The main research method for data collection is a survey using
questionnaire and interview. The questionnaire is developed based
on the HCI framework HCSDLC [4] which is discussed in the
prior section. The respondents of the survey are practitioners from
Klang Valley, Malaysia.
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3. 3.1 Survey Respondents
The survey was conducted with 32 respondents who are software
designer and developer practitioners consists of IT executive,
programmer, web designer, software engineer, IT officer, and
system analyst.
4. ANALYSIS AND RESULTS
The analysis conducted in this study is using descriptive analysis.
The SPSS version 13.0 was used to analyze the results.
4.1 User Involvement
These findings yield several interesting insights. The results
shows that 96.7% of practitioners agreed that user should involve
in SDLC and 90.4% agreed that user involvement is very
important. Though majority of the responded states that they
involve user in SDLC, the finding reveals that in some stages, the
user involvement is very minimal. For instance, only 16.13% of
practitioner involve user during the development stage. On the
other hand, 77.42% of practitioner involve user during the
requirement analysis stage (77.42%). Further analysis on their
perception of user involvement shows that 80.7 % of respondents
agree that users’ lack of technical knowledge hindered them from
having user involvement particularly during the design and
development stage.
This finding suggests that the need of user to equip themselves
with adequate knowledge. This study has revealed an important
issue over the possible lack of user awareness on the importance
of their involvement during the software life cycle.
4.2 HCI Considerations
The second major finding is regarding to what extent has HCI
elements been addressed in SDLC among practitioners. In this
study, three categories of HCI elements, which are proposed by
Zhang et al [4], are used. These categories are usability goal, user
experience, and target user model profile.
The result has showed that the HCI elements under the usability
goals have been well addressed except for the goal regarding safe
for use. Table 2 shows the detailed result on HCI consideration
based on usability goal.
Table 2. HCI consideration based on Usability Goal
HCI element % Sum
Effective to use 74.19 23
Efficient to use 74.19 23
Safe to use 32.26 10
Easy to learn 64.52 20
Easy remember how to use 51.61 16
This result reveals that practitioners’ main concern is on its
functionality and user friendliness but very much less concern on
safety and health.
The result on the HCI consideration based on the user experience
goal is given in Table 3. As shown in Table 3, helpful (77.4%),
satisfying (67.7%) and friendly (51.6%) is highly been addressed
by the practitioners. However, none of the practitioner addresses
fun (0%) and emotionally fulfilling (0%) elements. This shows
that in general the affective values are not well addressed.
Table 3. Descriptive statistics of user experience
HCI element % Sum
Satisfying 67.7 21
Rewarding 6.5 2
Helpful 77.4 24
Fun 0 0
Friendly 51.6 16
Motivating 3.2 1
Enjoyable 9.7 3
Support creativity 22.6 7
Entertaining 3.2 1
Emotionally fulfilling 0 0
The result on the HCI consideration based on the target user
model profile is shown in Table 4. Most of the practitioners
prefer to identify their target user model profile in system
development based on skill (67.7%), familiarity (61.3%) and job
specification (51.6%). There is very little percentage looking at
the cultural background (9.7%) and gender issues (3.2%). It is
apparent that target user model profile is not been emphasized in
terms of these two categories.
Table 4. Target user model profile
HCI element % Sum
Gender 3.2 1
Computer training & knowledge 61.3 19
Education 16.1 5
Experience with similar systems 67.7 21
Occupation (job spec.) 51.6 16
Cultural background 9.7 3
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4. The result of this study shows that in real practical world, the HCI
considerations in the SDLC are more focus on the functionality
requirements and very minimal on the non-functionality
requirements such as the safety, cultural and affective issues.
5. CONCLUSIONS
The results have showed that all respondents involve users in their
SDLC. However, the user involvement are mainly focus in the
requirement analysis stage, and only few involve users in the
design and development stage. The result also suggests that user’s
lack of technical knowledge in SDLC may explain why user
involvements are still minimal particularly during the design and
development stage. The findings on HCI considerations have
revealed that non-functional requirements such as cultural and
affective issues have not been emphasized by practitioners. From
these findings it is recommended to further investigate the user
awareness on the importance of user involvement in the software
development.
6. REFERENCES
[1] Hoffer, J.A., George, J.F., and Valacich, J.S. 2005. Modern
Systems Analysis and Design, (4th ed.), Upper Saddle River,
NJ: Prentice Hall.
[2] Hirschheim, R., and Klein, H.K. 1989. Four Paradigms of
Information Systems Development. Communication of the
ACM , 10 (32), 1199-1216.
[3] Zhang, P., Benbasat, I., Carey, J., Davis, F., Galletta, D., and
Strong, D. 2002. Human Computer Interaction Research in
the MIS Discipline. Communication of the AIS. 20 (9), 334-
355.
[4] Zhang, P., Carey, J., Te’eni, D., and Tremaine, M. 2005.
Integrating Human-Computer Interaction Development into
the Systems Development Life Cycle: A Methodology.
Communications of the Association for Information Systems,
15, 512-543.
[5] Thiam, K.C., and Siti, S.S. 2003. Webuse: Website Usability
Evaluation Tool. Malaysian Journal of Computer Science, 16
(1), 47-57.
[6] Hisham, S., and Edwards, A.D. 2005. Incorporating Culture
in User-interface: A Case Study of Older Adults in Malaysia.
Proceedings of the Eighteenth Conference on Hypertext and
Hypermedia, 145-146.
[7] Balakrishnan, V., and Paul, H.P. 2008. A Study of the Effect
of Thumb Sizes on Mobile Phone Texting Satisfaction.
Journal of Usability Studies, 3 (3), 118-128.
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