@article {10.1109/HICSS.2009.1005,
	title = {Users of Open Source Software - How Do They Get Help?},
	journal = {42nd Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences (HICSS 2009)},
	year = {2009},
	note = {"we collected twenty threads each from eight different websites making a total of 160 threads"},
	pages = {1-10},
	publisher = {IEEE Computer Society},
	address = {Los Alamitos, CA, USA},
	abstract = {A study was conducted across multiple open source software online technical help communities. This paper presents the types of discussions that occur, the types of questions asked and the type of responses that are given. The implications for socio-technical design are considered, exploring how help requests and discussions can be used to improve future help-giving, documentation and interface and functionality redesign.},
	keywords = {technical help},
	isbn = {978-0-7695-3450-3},
	doi = {http://doi.ieeecomputersociety.org/10.1109/HICSS.2009.1005},
	attachments = {https://flosshub.org/sites/flosshub.org/files/07-07-04.pdf},
	author = {Singh, Vandana and Michael B Twidale and David M Nichols}
}
@article {808,
	title = {Usability processes in open source projects},
	journal = {Software Process: Improvement and Practice},
	volume = {11},
	year = {2006},
	month = {03/2006},
	pages = {149 - 162},
	abstract = {We explore how some open source projects address issues of usability. We describe the mechanisms, techniques and technology used by open source communities to design and refine the interfaces to their programs. In particular we consider how these developers cope with their distributed community, lack of domain expertise, limited resources and separation from their users. We also discuss how bug reporting and discussion systems can be improved to better support bug reporters and open source developers.},
	issn = {1099-1670},
	doi = {10.1002/spip.256},
	author = {David M Nichols and Michael B Twidale}
}
@article {flosswp97,
	title = {Participatory Usability: supporting proactive users},
	journal = {Proceedings of the 4th Annual Conference of the ACM Special Interest Group on Computer Human Interaction - New Zealand Chapter (CHINZ{\textquoteright}03)},
	year = {2003},
	month = {June},
	pages = {63{\textendash}68},
	publisher = {ACM SIGCHI New Zealand.},
	abstract = {After software has been released the opportunities for users to influence development can often be limited. In this paper we review the research on post-deployment usability and make explicit its connections to open source software development. We describe issues involved in the design of end-user reporting tools with reference to the Safari web browser and a digital library prototype.},
	attachments = {https://flosshub.org/sites/flosshub.org/files/nicholsmckaytwidale.pdf},
	author = {David M Nichols and Dana McKay and Michael B Twidale}
}
@article {Nichols02usabilityand,
	title = {The Usability of Open Source Software},
	journal = {First Monday},
	volume = {8},
	year = {2003},
	abstract = {Open source communities have successfully developed a great deal of software although most computer users only use proprietary applications. The usability of open source software is often regarded as one reason for this limited distribution. In this paper we review the existing evidence of the usability of open source software and discuss how the characteristics of open source development influence usability. We describe how existing human-computer interaction techniques can be used to leverage distributed networked communities, of developers and users, to address issues of usability.},
	url = {http://firstmonday.org/article/view/1018/939},
	author = {David M Nichols and Michael B Twidale}
}
@article {flosswp98,
	title = {Usability and Open Source Software},
	journal = {Working Paper 02/10, Department of Computer Science, University of Waikato},
	year = {2002},
	month = {December},
	publisher = {Department of Computer Science, University of Waikato},
	abstract = {Open source communities have successfully developed many pieces of software although most computer users only use proprietary applications. The usability of open source software is often regarded as one reason for this limited distribution. In this paper we review the existing evidence of the usability of open source software and discuss how the characteristics of open-source development influence usability. We describe how existing human-computer interaction techniques can be used to leverage distributed networked communities, of developers and users, to address issues of usability.},
	attachments = {https://flosshub.org/sites/flosshub.org/files/nicholstwidale1.pdf},
	author = {David M Nichols and Michael B Twidale}
}
@article {flosswp47,
	title = {Usability and open-source software development},
	journal = {Proceedings of the Symposium on Computer Human Interaction},
	year = {2001},
	month = {June},
	pages = {49{\textendash}54},
	publisher = {ACM SIGCHI New Zealand},
	abstract = {This paper reports a usability study of the open-source Greenstone Digital Library collection-building software. The problems highlighted by the study are analysed to identify their likely source within the social context of Greenstone{\textquoteright}s development environment. We discuss how characteristics of open-source software development influence the usability of resulting software products.},
	keywords = {Greenstone, user study},
	attachments = {https://flosshub.org/sites/flosshub.org/files/nichols.pdf},
	author = {David M Nichols and Kirsten Thomson and Stuart A Yeates}
}
