The main idea of usability is that a system shall be designed with (generalized) users’ psychology and physiology in mind, to make that system:
- more efficient to use, so it takes less time to accomplish particular tasks
- easier to learn
- more satisfying to use
Definitions:
Capability of a product to be interacted with by specified users to exchange information between a user and a system via the user interface to complete the intended task. ISO-25010:2023
The capacity of a system to provide a condition for its users to perform the tasks safely, effectively, and efficiently while enjoying the experience. Wikipedia
Enable users to perform their tasks safely, effectively and efficiently while enjoying the experience.
Typical Acceptance Criteria
Scenario Response Measures from [Bass et al.]
The system should:
- provide the user with the features needed
- anticipate the user’s needs
- provide appropriate feedback to the user
The system’s response might be measured in one or more of the following:
- task time
- number of errors
- learning time
- ratio of learning time to task time
- number of tasks accomplished
- user satisfaction
- gain of user knowledge
- ratio of successful operations to total operations
- amount of time or data lost when an error occurs
What Stakeholders mean by usable
Stakeholder | (potential) Expectation for usable |
---|---|
User | see the criteria above. More specifically: * functional-completeness * accessibility * correctness * visual and behavioural consistency * understandability * ease-of-use * functional-suitability * learnability * nice user-experience (maybe even more) |
Product-Owner | - |
Management | - |
Developer | * understandable source-code and dependencies * an appropriate technology-stack * no (or at least predictable) side-effects when changing the system |
Tester | * testability * predictable test behaviour |
Admin | * easy to deploy and install, * installability * deployability |
Domain-Expert | - |
Others | - |
Qualities tagged with #usable
- Accessibility
- Accuracy
- Adaptability
- Affordability
- Anticipated Workplace Environment
- Appearance
- Appropriateness recognizability
- Attractiveness
- Availability
- Backward compatibility
- Clarity
- Code Readability
- Coherence
- Communicability
- Compatibility
- Compliance
- Conciseness
- Configurability
- Consistency
- Controllability
- Convenience
- Correctness
- Customizability
- Ease of Use
- Fault tolerance
- Faultlessness
- Features
- Functional Appropriateness
- Functional completeness
- Functional correctness
- Functional suitability
- Functionality
- Graceful degradation
- High availability
- i18n (Internationalization)
- Inclusivity
- Interaction capability
- Internationalization
- Interoperability
- Latency
- Learnability
- Legal Requirements
- Legibility
- Localizability
- Operability
- Preciseness
- Precision
- Readability
- Recoverability
- Reproducibility
- Self-descriptiveness
- Simplicity
- Standard Compliance
- Suitability
- Understandability
- Usability
- User assistance
- User engagement
- User error protection
- User experience
- User interface aesthetics
Requirements tagged with #usable
- Access Control via SSO
- Access Control
- Auditability
- Access find function in three seconds
- Convenience
- Ease of Use
- Interaction capability
- Usability
- User experience
- Accessible User Interface
- Accessibility
- Compliance
- Inclusivity
- Interaction capability
- Usability
- Accurate estimate of insurance contract rate
- Accuracy
- Functional correctness
- Interaction capability
- Preciseness
- Precision
- Reliability
- Appearance of mobile UI
- Appearance
- Consistency
- Interaction capability
- Usability
- User interface aesthetics
- Available 7x24 with 99% uptime
- Availability
- High availability
- Interaction capability
- Operability
- Reliability
- User error protection
- Clarity in technical documentation
- Clarity
- Coherence
- Legibility
- Understandability
- Compliance with UI styleguide
- Compliance
- Interaction capability
- Usability
- User experience
- Compliance with WCA accessibility guidelines
- Accessibility
- Interaction capability
- User assistance
- User experience
- Configurable UI theme
- Adaptability
- Changeability
- Configurability
- Customizability
- Flexibility
- Consistent keyboard shortcuts
- Consistency
- Interaction capability
- Usability
- User assistance
- User experience
- Convenient online banking
- Clarity
- Convenience
- Ease of Use
- Interaction capability
- User experience
- Core functions can be used on multiple OSs
- Compatibility
- Flexibility
- Interaction capability
- Portability
- Cultural Sensitivity in Content
- Inclusivity
- Interaction capability
- Internationalization
- Usability
- Data Throughput for Visual Test System
- Capacity
- Efficiency
- Performance
- Throughput
- Detect inconsistent user input
- Consistency
- Interaction capability
- Usability
- User assistance
- User experience
- Display Data Based on Context
- Adaptability
- Functional Appropriateness
- Easily understandable acceptance test cases
- Consistency
- Efficiency
- Interaction capability
- Maintainability
- Suitability
- Easily understandable generated code
- Code Readability
- Interaction capability
- Legibility
- Maintainability
- Readability
- Understandability
- Easy UI
- Interaction capability
- Usability
- Expressive error messages
- Fault isolation
- Graceful degradation
- Hazard warning
- Interaction capability
- Usability
- User assistance
- User experience
- Inclusive User Testing
- Inclusivity
- Interaction capability
- Usability
- Interruptable backend process
- Interaction capability
- Time behaviour
- Usability
- User experience
- Keep data on error
- Interaction capability
- Reliability
- Robustness
- Multilinguality Support
- Accessibility
- Inclusivity
- Interaction capability
- Usability
- Near instant search results
- Efficiency
- Interaction capability
- Performance
- Speed
- Time behaviour
- New users learn to find articles on their own
- Usability
- User experience
- Parallel Data Modification
- Performance
- Recognize Assistive Technologies
- Accessibility
- Inclusivity
- Interaction capability
- Usability
- Restore Filter after Log In
- Functional Appropriateness
- Restored to fully functional state 12h after complete failure
- Availability
- High availability
- Interaction capability
- Mean time to recovery
- Operability
- Reliability
- Unavailable for max 2 minutes
- Availability
- Reliability
- Usable Despite Color Blindness
- Accessibility
- Compliance
- Inclusivity
- Interaction capability
- Usability
- User experience
- Usable With Gloves
- Compliance
- Interaction capability
- Usability
- User experience
- Usable on Factory Floor
- Anticipated Workplace Environment
- Interaction capability
- Usability
- User Interface can be used in Current Browsers
- Compatibility
- Flexibility
- Interaction capability
- Interoperability
- Portability
- User tries to achieve primary function
- Appropriateness recognizability
- Functional Appropriateness
- Functional completeness
- Interaction capability
- User experience
- Vehicle's position validity influences accuracy
- Functional correctness
- Preciseness
- Precision
- Reliability