Investigating the impact on subjective satisfaction and learnability when adopting cloud in an SME

Abstract: Cloud services and solutions have served as a shift in the computer industry and create new opportunities for users. Clouds have been described as easily usable and fluid in terms of expansion and contraction depending on the real-time needs. Although the cloud is promoted with several benefits, it is not always apparent for the users that this is the case. Understanding both the benefits and challenges that exist is substantial for a successful adoption to cloud. This master’s thesis is conducted in collaboration with Exsitec ABand aims to investigate how the adoption of the cloud service Microsoft Azure will affect the development process. Also, it aims to provide a best practice for potentially needed updated working procedures, in terms of satisfaction and learnability. The investigation was performed through interviews and the System Usability Scale, to assess how the end users experienced development in a cloud environment. The thesis revealed that the Azure portal has low overall usability, but that there also exists an inconsistency of that perception. Two major factors that contributed to the satisfaction and learnability was the lack of documentation and that the Azure portal was considered hard to master. The SUS score revealed that the mean value was below an acceptable level, and thus changes in the company’s working procedures need to be implemented. Internal documentation regarding how the company should use both cloud in general, as well as the portal in particular, are required in order to increase the learnability and subjective satisfaction.