Usability Testing

Video: What Is Website Usability?

Jeff Hecker

Check out this video for an exploration of the different ways that website usability has been defined.  We conclude with a list of things that constitute usability issues in the context of these definitions.

Some of the definitions of website usability discussed in this video include:

1. The ISO definition of usability:

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.

2. Whitney Quesebery’s 5 E’s of Usability: Effectiveness, Efficiency, Error Tolerance, Engaging, and Easy to Learn

3. Steve Krug’s Definition

As much as humanly possible, a website should be self-evident, obvious and self explanatory.  Designing for usability means working to reduce the amount of thinking that people need to do when using your site by making things are self evident as possible. The more people have to stop and think about how to do what they want to do, where to click, where to find things what, things mean, whether something’s clickable, etcetera  the more that confidence has site, and user satisfaction are eroded.

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