Pattern-Based Usability Testing

Usability is a critical aspect of software systems because poor user experience can lead users to choose other software. One way to improve usability is through testing. But, usability testing is a challenge because, most of the times, it can not be accomplished without the presence of real users, which is complex and requires a lot of effort. However, there are some aspects and usability guidelines that can be tested automatically. This paper presents a test approach that defines generic test strategies (test patterns) to test usability guidelines (or best practices). It is an extension to previous work on testing functional aspects of web applications through the GUI (PBGT – Pattern Based GUI Testing). The main goal of this work is to be the first step in extending PBGT's PARADIGM language with usability testing patterns, so that it is possible to build test models from which usability tests can be generated and automatically executed over a website. This paper presents a new usability test pattern, called "Reachability Test Pattern", which is validated in a case study performed over an academic software system available on the web.