CAMELOT: technology focused testing of CSCW applications

In this paper we describe CAMELOT, a technology-focused methodology for testing computer supported cooperative work (CSCW) software. Unlike previous CSCW evaluation techniques examining social issues, CAMELOT is intended for use by application developers, user interface specialists, performance engineers, and quality assurance personnel. The method divides an evaluation into two stages: single user and multi-user. The single user stage is subdivided into general computing and human-computer interaction testing. The multi-user stage is decomposed into distributed computing and human-human interaction testing. The methodology provides a detailed, codified, checklist of testing techniques for each stage. CAMELOT was applied to a conventionally tested, mature CSCW application and uncovered over two dozen problems.