Engineering Usability for Software Refactoring Tools

The goal of refactoring tools is to support the user in improving the internal structure of code whilst maintaining its existing behaviour. As a human-in-the-loop process (ie one that is centered around a user performing a task), refactoring support tools must aim to meet high standards of usability. In this paper we present an initial usability study of software refactoring tools. During the study, we analysed the task of software refactoring using the ISO 9241-11 standard for usability. Expanding on this analysis, we reviewed 11 collections of usability guidelines and combined these into a single list of 34 guidelines. From this list and the definition of refactoring, we developed 81 usability requirements for refactoring tools. Using these requirements, four sample refactoring tools were studied to analyse the state-of-the-art for usability of refactoring tools. Finally, we have identified areas in which further work is required