Why it Matters
Usability contributes to accomplishing business goals and is about making products and systems easier to use; matching them more closely to user needs and requirements.
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."
Usability is essential for users in a professional environment to be productive, and for successful use of web applications and resources.
To design for usability we need to know who is using the product, e.g. are they highly trained and experienced users, or novices; what their goals are - does the product support what they want to do with it; and what the usage situation or 'context of use' is - where and how is the product being used?
The best way to find out whether a product is usable is to test it with users: watch them while they try using it for their normal tasks.
Business case - Improving the usability of a website can increase sales, reduce customer service calls, and increase customer satisfaction and loyalty.
Usability standards - International standards for usability define good practice, and provide authority for usability work.
Business case
Improving web site usability increases sales, reduces customer service calls, and increases customer satisfaction and loyalty. Satisfied customers stay longer on sites and consume more which leads to increased sales for e-commerce sites.
For intranets, improved usability increases productivity by reducing the time to complete a task, reducing the error rate, and increasing satisfaction. Improvements can be quantified by measuring saved time, gained revenues, and increased productivity.
A major computer company spent $68,000 on usability work to improve a system that was used by over 100,000 people. The resulting productivity improvement saved the company $6,800,000, which is a cost-benefit ratio of $1: $100.
Including usability in the development process yields even greater returns through reduced development costs, reduced development time, and ultimately an improved end product. . It is always better to design something right to begin with rather than fixing it later.
Creative Good offered the striking revelation that a dollar spent on advertising produced $5 in total revenue, while a dollar spent on customer experience improvements yielded more than $60.
Keeping end-users in mind during every step of development processes from requirements analysis, conceptual design, prototyping, and production ensures that a web site will not just be used once but again and again. A user-centred approach may double the conversion rate and revenues of a commercial site.
Reducing risk
Usability methods substantially reduce the risk of potential project failure by ensuring that a product or web site is closely aligned to user needs. Without use of usability methods, the product or web site is likely to have poor usability, which may result in unacceptably poor sales or productivity, leading to project failure
More information
More information can be found on UsabilityNet.
An overview of the benefits (PDF File 396kb) and a case study can be downloaded.
Usability standards
There are well-established international standards for usability and user-centred design. These define good practice, and provide authority for usability work.
ISO 13407 (Human-centred design processes for interactive systems) provides a simple overview that can be read by managers. ISO 9241-11 (Guidance on Usability) explains the importance of the context of use and how usability can be measured.
Other potentially useful standards include:
- Usability reporting format: ISO 25062 (Common Industry Format for usability test reports).
- Usability test methods for everyday products: ISO 20282 (Ease of operation of everyday products).
- Usability maturity: ISO TR 18529 (Human-centred lifecycle process descriptions)
International standards can be purchased from ISO [www.iso.org] or your national standards body.
More information
A more complete list of standards related to usability can be downloaded [http://www.nigelbevan.com/papers/web usability standards.pdf].
