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vthakur · Joined: 29 Aug 2007 Posts: 8

Please explain Usability Metrics...?

prashar · Joined: 29 Aug 2007 Posts: 15

Usability can be measured, but it rarely is. The reason? Metrics are expensive and are a poor use of typically scarce usability resources.

Most companies still under-invest in usability. With a small budget, you're far better off passing on quantitative measures and reaching for the low-hanging fruit of qualitative methods, which provide a much better return on investment. Generally, to improve a design, insight is better than numbers.

However, the tide might be turning on usability funding. I've recently worked on several projects to establish formal usability metrics in different companies. As organizations increase their usability investments, collecting actual measurements is a natural next step and does provide benefits. In general, usability metrics let you:

*Track progress between releases. You cannot fine-tune your methodology unless you know how well you're doing.

*Assess your competitive position. Are you better or worse than other companies? Where are you better or worse?

*Make a Stop/Go decision before launch. Is the design good enough to release to an unsuspecting world?

*Create bonus plans for design managers and higher-level executives. For example, you can determine bonus amounts for development project leaders based on how many customer-support calls or emails their products generated during the year.