While software architecture has become an increasingly important research topic in recent years, insufficient atten-tion has been paid to methods for evaluation of these archi-tectures. Evaluating architectures is dijjicultfor two main reasons. First, there is no common language used 10 de-scribe different architectures. Second, there is no clear way of understanding an architecture with respect to an organi-zation’s ll~e cycle concerns—software quality concerns such as maintainability, portability, modularity, reusability, and so forth. This paper addresses these shortcomings by describing three perspectives by which we can understand the description of a soflware architecture and then propos-ing ajve-step method for analyzing software architectures called SAAM (Software Architecture Analysis Method). We illustrate the method by analyzing three separate user in-terface architectures with respect to the qualiiy of modifi-ability. 1

The current variety of alternative approaches to usability evaluation methods (UEMs) designed to assess and improve usability in software systems is offset by a general lack of understanding of the capabilities and limitations of each. Practitioners need to know which methods are more effective and in what ways and for what purposes. However, UEMs cannot be evaluated and compared reliably because of the lack of standard criteria for comparison. In this article, we present a practical discussion of factors, comparison criteria, and UEM performance measures useful in studies comparing UEMs. In demonstrating the importance of developing appropriate UEM evaluation criteria, we offer operational definitions and possible measures of UEM performance. We highlight specific challenges that researchers and practitioners face in comparing UEMs and provide a point of departure for further discussion and refinement of the principles and techniques used to approach UEM evaluation and comparison. 1.

this article consolidates all of the meta-studys principal data for easy access. Readers interested in further scrutinizing the numerical counts that are graphed and discussed in Sections 3 and 4 can consult the appendix, which indicates the precise manner in which each of the SV effectiveness studies is classified

Software architecture is an increasingly important research topic and in this report we investigate the potential role of architecture in evaluating the properties of a system built to a particular architecture. Currently such architectural analysis is complicated for two main reasons: authors of new architectures describe their creations in idiosyncratic terms; and there is no clear way of understanding an architecture with respect to an organization's life cycle concerns---efficiency, maintainability, modifiability, and so forth. This report addresses these shortcomings by proposing a domain-based method for analyzing software architectures called SAAM (Software Architecture Analysis Method). This method contains several steps. A canonical functional partitioning for the domain is adopted. Next, some candidate architectures in this domain are described in a common and simple structural language, providing a neutral context in which to understand their similarities and differences. Ne...