As the COVID-19 storms the globe, there are many efforts to battle it. This paper looks at the development of one such an effort in a form of a mobile game. The game is a 2D arcade game called Unus Terra. It is intended to be entertaining but aims to influence people to partake in social distancing through several mechanics. An early version of the game is evaluated by five usability and user experience experts using heuristics and a few other selected methods. In this paper, we present the results from these evaluations along with our findings from using this type of evaluation method. The use of heuristics is considered from the perspectives of academics and practitioners.

Open source software (OSS) projects are often seen as participatory and egalitarian settings where people collaboratively develop software to serve their needs as well as the needs of others. In this paper, however, we argue that power and politics also characterize OSS development, and that this has serious implications for OSS usability. The existing Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) research on OSS usability has already shown that power and politics play a role; this study offers a theoretical treatment of the matter. A theoretical framework on power and empowerment is utilized in analyzing empirical data on OSS usability as well as the existing body of knowledge on the topic. With the help of this framework, HCI research can address the aspects of power and empowerment in OSS usability in a more systematic and comprehensive manner.