**3. Research method**

Usability technique definition and integration into OSS projects is a complicated process, about which there are few papers [6, 23–25]. These papers suggest that usability techniques should be reconceptualized, but they do not explain how the OSS community should go about adaptation. Nichols and Twidale [4] are the only authors to put forward some general ideas for improving usability. However, the issues to be taken into account to adopt such

In particular, very few studies have reported the application of the focus groups technique in OSS projects [23, 26, 27] In the study by Terry et al. [23], the focus groups technique was adopted with adaptations in various OSS projects (for example, in a desktop windows environment and in a desktop operating system). For the focus groups technique a usability expert meets the developers either in person or through Internet Relay Chat. These meetings are held periodically (weekly, monthly or annually) and their aim is that the applications or the designs proposed for a new functionality are evaluated by an expert in usability [23]. In this case, the OSS developers are the ones that participate in the Focus Groups, rather than the final users. In Semedo and colleagues' study [26], the participants replied to a questionnaire beforehand to assess their previous experience using the CLASS tool. This OSS application permits the recording, analysis and interpretation of respiratory sounds. The participants received a training session for the application. Two days later, they participated in a focus group session directed by the researchers to better understand their experience when interacting with the application. This focus group lasted approximately 20 minutes and was recorded on video. In Kolagani and colleagues' study [27] the authors developed the Watershed GIS OSS for the management of geographical information. In this study the focus groups technique is adopted with the aim of obtaining the requirements for both types of users (experts and common) of the tool. In the last two studies [26, 27] it is stated that the final users participated in the Focus Group sessions

Although research examining usability in OSS has been published [9, 23, 28, 29], there is no standardised procedure for determining how to adopt usability in OSS development. It appears to be less straightforward to integrate usability into the OSS development process than into commercial development projects due to some of the characteristics of the OSS community, like: (i) feature-centred development, (ii) worldwide geographical distribution, (iii) limited resources, and (iv) a culture that may be alien to interaction designers. Consequently, usability technique adoption is a demanding task because most HCI techniques are not

In the wake of the literature review, we can say that only one of the research papers reports a general and systematic proposal for integrating usability techniques into the OSS development process [13]. To do this, it considers the particular characteristics, philosophy and idiosyncrasy of the OSS development process, without forfeiting the essence of usability techniques. Two systematic mapping studies (SMS) related to usability in OSS were conducted in advance of our research. A SMS reviews the literature on a particular field of interest [29]. The first SMS was conducted by Castro [13] reviewing papers published up until 30 July 2013. The second SMS was conducted with a search range from 1 August 2013 to 30 April 2015 [30] and

designed for the type of environment in which OSS is developed [13].

later updated considering the 30 July 2017 as the final date.

techniques in OSS developments are unclear.

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conducted by the researchers themselves.

We used a case study as the qualitative research method to validate our research [31]. From a case study, we learn about the experiences of applying usability techniques adapted to OSS projects. This research method is used when the phenomenon under investigation (in this case, the adoption of an adapted usability technique) is studied within its real setting (in this case, an OSS project). OSS projects are the perfect setting for the case study reported here because OSS communities are generally uninformed about usability techniques, do not have the resources to test usability and cannot usually count on usability expert involvement [4, 9, 11]. Small project teams in particular have little information about what techniques are at their disposal for improving usability [6, 32].

The case study addresses the following research question (RQ): How to incorporate the focus groups technique in a real OSS project?

ERMaster, a graphical editing tool for entity-relation diagrams (ERD), was selected as the OSS project in which to adopt the focus groups technique. In this research, we first identified the obstacles to applying the focus groups technique in the ERMaster project. We then decided how to deal with the obstacles. Finally, we proposed the adaptations necessary to adopt the focus groups technique in this project.

We created web artefacts to improve communication with OSS community members and efficiently synchronise the necessary activities to apply the focus groups usability technique. The web artefact used to test the feasibility of the proposed technique was a forum. Forums are used in the focus groups technique to gather information and compile sketches related to the application user interface. Thanks to this web artefact, we were able to set up a virtual meeting point with OSS users who are geographically distributed all over the world.
