Addressing User Requirements in Opens Source Software: The Role of Online Forums
This work addresses the problem of improving usability and user satisfaction in open source software for developers and communities, but it is incremental as it builds on existing knowledge about forums.
The study investigated how online forums help identify and address user requirements in open source software, using a dataset of 100 projects and finding that forums play a significant role.
User satisfaction has always been important in the success of software, regardless of whether it is closed and proprietary or open source software (OSS). OSS users are geographically distributed and include technical as well as novice users. However, it is generally believed that if OSS was more usable, its popularity would increase tremendously. Hence, users and their requirements need to be addressed in the priorities of an OSS environment. Online public forums are a major medium of communication for the OSS community. The research model of this work studies the relationship between user requirements in open source software and online public forums. To conduct this research, we used a dataset consisting of 100 open source software projects in different categories. The results show that online forums play a significant role in identifying user requirements and addressing their requests in open source software.