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What is Usability?

According to Brooke* "Usability does not exist in any absolute sense; it can only be defined with reference to particular contexts." That is, one cannot speak of usability without specifying what that particular usability is characterized by. Driven by the feedback of a reviewer at an international conference, I explore in which way one can precisely specify the kind of usability they are investigating in a given setting. Finally, I come up with a formalism that defines usability as a quintuple comprising the elements level of usability metrics, product, users, goals and context of use. Providing concrete values for these elements then constitutes the investigated type of usability. The use of this formalism is demonstrated in two case studies.

* J. Brooke. SUS: A "quick and dirty" usability scale. In P. W. Jordan, B. Thomas, B. A. Weerdmeester, and A. L. McClelland, editors, Usability Evaluation in Industry. Taylor and Francis, 1996.

Identiferoai:union.ndltd.org:DRESDEN/oai:qucosa.de:bsz:ch1-qucosa-159949
Date02 February 2015
CreatorsSpeicher, Maximilian
ContributorsTU Chemnitz, Fakultät für Informatik
PublisherUniversitätsbibliothek Chemnitz
Source SetsHochschulschriftenserver (HSSS) der SLUB Dresden
LanguageEnglish
Detected LanguageEnglish
Typedoc-type:workingPaper
Formatapplication/pdf, text/plain, application/zip
Relationdcterms:isPartOf:Chemnitzer Informatik-Berichte ; CSR-15-02

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