This lesson provides an overview of what usability is, and why it is important for the success of software products. Understanding users' needs and goals is vital for designing and building an easy to use website or software system. Best practices for designing an easy to use interface include: Simplicity, Consistency, and use of Conventional UI elements. Usability of software can be evaluated by measuring users' error rate, success rate, time required to finish a task, and subjective satisfaction. Including an appreciation for usability in the software development process will lead to a better overall user experience, and reduced development costs, hence, higher revenues.
Learning Outcomes
Identify and describe usability quality attributes
Analyze a user interface context (consisting of one or more user types and one or more tasks/activities) and choose an appropriate type of user interface
Study Resources
For your study of this topic, use these resources.
Appreciation for usability - team: Before you start working on this activity, read the User Interface Design Basics article. As a team, discuss the following two questions and prepare answers in a document.
Identify the UI elements in your project that support the usability quality attributes:
Learnability
Efficiency
Error recovery
What changes would you make to the website UI to improve its usability? Explain your reasoning.
By the time specified in the schedule for your section, submit a PDF file with your answers to these two questions to the Appreciation for usability - team myCourses dropbox located in the Team Exercises area.
