Integrating usability-engineering into the software developing processes of SME

Usability is an important factor for product quality. For German small and medium enterprises (SME) in the software branch, cheaper producing vendors from foreign countries can be considered as serious competition. Improving the usability of software products is a good way to secure competitiveness. However, integrating usability-engineering into development is a challenge for SME. In this note, we present the empirical results of a research project study with focus on software engineering processes in German software SME and possible constraints and chances for integrating usability-engineering.