Usability FAQ

By Prashant Natarajan 

What is usability?

Usability can be defined simply as “ease of use” of a system. According to ISO 9241, Part 11, usability is “the extent to which a product can be used by specified users to achieve specified goals with effectiveness, efficiency, and satisfaction in a specified context of use.”

Is usability measurable?

Usability is an abstract quality by itself. However, it can be divided into measurable attributes such as

• learning curve (how easy is it to learn the system functionality and complete a task),

• efficiency (speed at which the user can perform a task),

• retention (the user’s ability to use the system after discontinuous usage use without having to learn the system all over again),

• errors (number of errors the user makes while completing a task), and

• satisfaction (the user’s impression of the system).
  

How can technical communicators contribute to application usability?

A usable application must include readable and accurate online help, installation manuals, user guides, and training material. Effective and usable documentation results in increased user satisfaction, overall application usability, and reduced customer support costs.

As technical communicators, we can leverage our organisational skills, user/task analysis experiences, and knowledge of the application/domain functionality to contribute to overall application usability.

Does usability translate to better business practices?

Yes! Usability makes a lot of business sense and is critical to an organisation’s success. It is the key differentiator between an application’s success and failure in the marketplace. Good usability is also gaining importance in a world where computers (and users) are proliferating by the day. If users are not comfortable with an application, they are less likely to accept it.

Integrating usability in all phases of the software development lifecycle results in optimal design and development costs, comprehensive functionality coverage, reduced iterations, and complete user satisfaction. The net result is increased market share and profits.

Are there any books or online resources on usability and user interface design?

Partial list of books

• Barnum, C. M. Usability Testing and Research. Pearson Education: New York, New York, 2002. ISBN: 0-205-31519-4.

• Shneiderman, B. Designing the User Interface: Strategies for Human-Computer Interaction (Third Edition). Addison-Wesley: Reading, MA, 1998.

• Nielsen, J. Usability Engineering. Academic Press: Boston, MA, 1993.

• Hackos, J. T. and Redish, J. C. User and Task Analysis for Interface Design. Wiley: New York, 1998.

• Cooper, A. About Face: The Essentials of User Interface Design. IDG Books Worldwide: Foster City, CA, 1995.

• Tufte, E. R. The Visual Display of Quantitative Information. Graphics Press: Chesire, CT, 1983.

• Vredenburg, K., Isensee, S., and Righi, C. User-Centered Design: An Integrated Approach. Prentice Hall PTR: Upper Saddle River, NJ, 2002. ISBN: 0-13-091295-6.

Partial list of online resources

• http://www.stcsig.org/usability/index.html

• www.useit.com

• http://www.hcibib.org/?url=http://usableweb.com/&source=index

References

Natalia Juristo, Helmut Windl, and Larry Constantine. “Introducing Usability”, IEEE Software, vol.17, no. 1, Jan. 2001.

Natalia Juristo et al. “Usability Basics for Software Developers”, IEEE Software, vol.17, no. 1, Jan. 2001.

Shneiderman, B. Designing the User Interface: Strategies for Human-Computer Interaction (Third Edition), Addison-Wesley, Reading, MA, 1998.

http://www.stcsig.org/usability/index.html

(Prashant Natarajan is a Senior Systems Engineer at Seimens Information Systems Limited. He is also the Membership Manager for STC India. You can contact him at prashant@stc-india.org.)

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