{"id":6,"date":"2009-04-27T12:11:29","date_gmt":"2009-04-27T20:11:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.numinix.com\/blog\/?p=6"},"modified":"2019-05-29T09:56:29","modified_gmt":"2019-05-29T16:56:29","slug":"what-is-usability","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.numinix.com\/blog\/what-is-usability\/","title":{"rendered":"What is usability?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Wikipedia: Usability<\/strong> is a term used to denote the ease with which people can employ a particular tool or other human-made object in order to achieve a particular goal. Usability can also refer to the methods of measuring usability and the study of the principles behind an object’s perceived efficiency or elegance.<\/p>\n

In other words, usability is the degree to which a user (website visitors) are able to complete the expected task.\u00a0 For example, on an e-commerce website, if the user is not able to find the checkout, they will not be able to complete their purchase.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Jared Spool from User Interface Engineering<\/a>, a leader in usability testing, uses two definitions for the word “usable”:<\/p>\n

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  1. “Black-and-white definition” – Can the user achieve their goal?<\/li>\n
  2. “Shades-of-grey definition” – Can the user’s experience be better?<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    He states that websites must strive to satisfy the black-and-white definition before the shades-of-grey definition.\u00a0 If a function is not being used to achieve the expected goal, their is no need to improve the experience of the user for this function.\u00a0<\/p>\n

    Over the next half dozen articles, I will be going more into depth of each step of the usability testing process.\u00a0 Usually, this procedure involves the following 6 steps:<\/p>\n

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    1. Brainstorming objectives<\/li>\n
    2. Recruiting participants<\/li>\n
    3. Designing tasks<\/li>\n
    4. Rehearsing the test protocol<\/li>\n
    5. Conducting the usability test<\/li>\n
    6. Analyzing results<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n