Improving software usability through architectural patterns

This paper presents an approach for improving final software system usability by designing for usability, in particular by addressing usability issues in the software architecture. This approach differs from the traditional idea of measuring and improving usability once the system is complete. The work presented in this paper is part of the research conducted within the European Union IST STATUS related to the development of techniques and procedures for supporting a forwardengineering approach to improve usability in software systems at the architectural level. In particular, we present the ongoing research about usability improvement by including architectural patterns that provide solutions for specific usability mechanisms.