Sharing the Usability Test Reports

Many factors affect a corporation's decisions about which software products to purchase. One key factor is any software's usability. In simple terms, usability reflects the following:

  • How easy the software is to learn

  • How easy the software is to use

  • How productively users will work

  • The amount of support users will need

Software developers employ a variety of techniques to ensure software usability. In general terms, these techniques involve studying users to develop an understanding of their needs and iteratively refining versions of the software based on usability testing results.

In making purchase decisions, companies and organizations have traditionally had little indication of how usable a product would be or how much training and support its users would need. The situation has made it difficult to compare products, to plan for support, or to estimate total cost of ownership. In October of 1997, the U.S. National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) initiated an effort, including the IUSER project, to increase the visibility of software usability. Cooperating in the IUSR project are prominent suppliers of software and representatives from large consumer organizations. The goals of the initiative are to:

  • Encourage software suppliers and consumer organizations to work together to understand user needs and tasks.

  • Develop a common usability-reporting format (CIF, ANSI/INCITS-354) for sharing usability data with consumer organizations.

  • Create extensions/variations to the CIF for reporting in areas such as requirements, formative testing, and testing with hardware.

Usability testing can be valuable for a wide range of products, however the IUSR project is initially focused only on software. We recognize that the usability of hardware (printers, copiers, fax machines, and so on) is important and often tightly integrated with software. The initial focus on software was intended to narrow the focus of the initial project so that a pilot study could be conducted. Extending the scope of the reporting standard to include hardware and other products should be addressed later in the project.



Practical Guide to Enterprise Architecture, A
A Practical Guide to Enterprise Architecture
ISBN: 0131412752
EAN: 2147483647
Year: 2005
Pages: 148

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