ISO defines usability as "a measure of the effectiveness, efficiency, and satisfaction with which specified users can achieve goals in a particular environment."
For Surround, usability means that those who use the application can learn it quickly and use it efficiently to accomplish the tasks they need to in order to become successful. Software with more intuitive features reduces user’s learning curve, improves their productivity and allows them to provide better services to your customers and personnel. Usability enables business users to concentrate on efficient task completion rather than learning and struggling with the tools themselves. In short, there is a huge productivity gain to be found in improving usability in your applications.
When Software gets in the way
Who hasn’t encountered clunky software applications with complicated front-ends that seem to hinder progress?
We’ve all heard the saying about where the road paved with good intentions leads. No matter how well software is intended to function, if the user’s interface is not productive and comfortable, the user will not be satisfied and the business will suffer.
It is very common for software developers to create software that is usable from the developer’s perspective, but might seem quite foreign to the typical daily user.
When What Works Isn’t What’s Best
Would you want an architect to design your house without consulting you?
What if you hired an architect who designed your house with only one bedroom, even though you have a family of six? What if the architect decided your doorways only needed to be 5 feet high? The house would still function. The business need would be met. But, would your overall satisfaction with the end product be high or low?
You want personal attention when you build your house! Business end users want personal attention as well and they like using software that is built for them. They want their software to be a comfortable place to call home.
Make it Usable…Make it Effective.
As your business users depend more and more on software to get their jobs done, usability can be the critical factor that ensures your applications will be used to their fullest extent.
Surround Technologies can provide you with the experience and insight to not only make your software more usable, but also give you ways to measure its usability.
7 Usability Gauges
There are seven primary categories that our company uses to gauge the usability of software features and functionality.
- Learnability: Users can learn and adapt to it easily.
- Memorability: They can remember how to use it.
- Findability: They can easily locate the information they need.
- Discoverability: They can access other relevant information.
- Time to Task: Their tasks are completed successfully, error-free.
- User Satisfaction: Overall satisfaction in the end.
Usability Development Mentoring
With Surround’s 7 usability categories, we can mentor your development team. We will teach them how to create usability standards, how to successfully involve business end users in the development process,; how to review application usability and how to develop usability metrics.
Let Surround Technologies work with your development team and business end users to assess and measure the usability of your applications. We will provide you with a full report giving you specific action items that we guarantee will have a direct impact on your company’s profitability.
Contact us for more information.