The Pennsylvania State University The Graduate School College of Information Sciences and Technology SUPPORTING THE USER EXPERIENCE IN FREE/LIBRE/OPEN SOURCE SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT A Dissertation in Information Sciences and Technology by Paula M. Bach © 2009 Paula M. Bach Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy August 2009 The dissertation of Paula M. Bach was reviewed and approved* by the following: John M. Carroll Professor of Information Sciences and Technology Dissertation Advisor Chair of Committee Mary Beth Rosson Professor of Information Sciences and Technology Andrea Tapia Assistant Professor of Information Sciences and Technology Allison Carr-Chellman Professor of Instructional Systems Steven Haynes Professor of Practice of Information Sciences and Technology John Yen Professor of Information Sciences and Technology Associate Dean for Research and Graduate Programs *Signatures are on file in the Graduate School iii ABSTRACT With the increasing number and awareness of free/libre/open source software (FLOSS) projects, Internet users can download a FLOSS tool that meets just about any need. The user experience of projects, however, varies greatly and identifying FLOSS projects that offer a positive user experience (UX) is challenging. FLOSS projects center on software developer activities with little attention to user-centered design activities that could increase the user experience on the project. The purpose of this dissertation is to understand open source software ecology in order to bring support for user experience design activities on FLOSS projects. CodePlex, an open source project hosting website, serves as the open source software ecology. The research consists of two phases, a descriptive science phase and a design science phase. In the descriptive phase fieldwork in the form of ethnomethodologically informed ethnography describes the everyday activities of three groups: the team that produces CodePlex, the participants who use CodePlex to produce open source projects, and user experience practitioners who bring their expertise to design software with a positive user experience. The descriptive phase also includes an analysis of activity awareness of the three groups. The design science phase consists of a claims analysis that provides design rationale for a design that proposes to support UX activities on CodePlex. The results show that activity awareness contributes to the socio-technical solution where UX activities can be supported as a new community of practice, with features that support building social capital. The UX support features include a UX workspace where UX contributors recognize their value and other features that support the presence of UX throughout the project site and the CodePlex community. This dissertation contributes empirical materials from the descriptions of everyday activities of the three groups and analytic materials generated from the activity awareness and claims analyses that are translated into design representations. Specifically the contributions iv include 1) mechanisms of articulation work of the three groups and how the mechanisms contribute to the design representation; 2) the demonstration of a translation science in computer- supported cooperative work (CSCW) and human-computer interaction (HCI); and 3) an understanding of how UX activities and software engineering activities integrate. v TABLE OF CONTENTS LIST OF FIGURES…………………………………………………………………….………. IX LIST OF TABLES……………………………………………………………………………….. X ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS……………………………………………………………………. XI CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION .......................................................................................................1 BACKGROUND OF THE PROBLEM ........................................................................................................3 STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM ............................................................................................................6 PURPOSE OF THE STUDY......................................................................................................................8 MOTIVATION AND IMPORTANCE OF THE STUDY ................................................................................8 Scope of the Study ..........................................................................................................................9 Research Questions..................................................................................................................... 12 ORGANIZATION OF THE DISSERTATION ........................................................................................... 13 CHAPTER 2 FOCUSED OVERVIEW OF THE OPEN SOURCE LITERATURE............. 14 Describing the open source software development ecology..................................................... 15 GENERAL CSCW KEY ISSUES FOUND IN FLOSS ............................................................................ 17 Communication, coordination, and software development practices in FLOSS .................... 18 ROLES AND ACTIVITIES AS CSCW ISSUES PARTICULAR TO FLOSS .............................................. 24 DEVELOPER MOTIVATION IN FLOSS............................................................................................... 30 THE SUCCESS OF FLOSS SOCIO-TECHNICAL ENVIRONMENTS........................................................ 31 OVERVIEW OF CHALLENGES AND OPPORTUNITIES FOR UXD IN OPEN SOURCE SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT ................................................................................................................................................. 32 Research perspectives of user experience in FLOSS................................................................ 33 Practitioner perspectives of usability in FLOSS....................................................................... 36 CHAPTER 3 THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK......................................................................... 43 vi CHAPTER 4 RESEARCH METHODS ........................................................................................ 48 FIELDWORK AS ETHNOMETHODOLOGICALLY INFORMED ETHNOGRAPHY...................................... 49 ACTIVITY AWARENESS ..................................................................................................................... 50 CLAIMS ANALYSIS ............................................................................................................................ 52 DESIGN PROPOSAL ........................................................................................................................... 54 DATA................................................................................................................................................. 56 Data collection ............................................................................................................................ 57 UX activity data........................................................................................................................... 58 CodePlex Team Data .................................................................................................................. 59 CodePlex User Data ................................................................................................................... 61 Data analysis ............................................................................................................................... 62 ETHICAL CONSIDERATIONS .............................................................................................................. 62 THE RESEARCHER’S ROLE ................................................................................................................ 64 Researcher Identity ..................................................................................................................... 64 Researcher lens ........................................................................................................................... 67 METHODS CONCLUSION ................................................................................................................... 67 CHAPTER 5 DESCRIPTIONS ...................................................................................................... 68 CodePlex Team............................................................................................................................ 68 CodePlex Users ........................................................................................................................... 83 SharpMap .................................................................................................................................... 86 Blogger Backup ........................................................................................................................... 90 Rawr ............................................................................................................................................. 92 User experience........................................................................................................................... 97 CHAPTER 6 ACTIVITY AWARENESS ANALYSIS ............................................................. 101 COMMON GROUND.......................................................................................................................... 101 Common ground with the CodePlex team ............................................................................... 102 vii Common ground with the