Usability

Usability is the ease of use and learnability of a human-made object.

Description

The object of use can be a software application, website, book, tool, machine, process, or anything a human interacts with.

Usability study

A usability study may be conducted as a primary job function by a usability analyst or as a secondary job function by designers, technical writers, marketing personnel, and others.

Applications

It is widely used in consumer electronics, communication, and knowledge transfer objects (such as a cookbook, a document or online help) and mechanical objects such as a door handle or a hammer.

Measuring usability

Usability includes methods of measuring usability, such as needs analysis and the study of the principles behind an object's perceived efficiency or elegance.

In human-computer interaction and computer science

In human-computer interaction and computer science, usability studies the elegance and clarity with which the interaction with a computer program or a website is designed.

See Web accessibility, Web usability.

User satisfaction and user experience

Usability differs from user satisfaction and user experience because usability also considers usefulness.

See also

• A/B testing
• Accessibility
• User experience
• Web accessibility
• Web usability

External Links

• Usability @ Wikipedia