{"id":21616,"date":"2020-01-28T15:54:17","date_gmt":"2020-01-28T15:54:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.arimetrics.com\/glosario-digital\/usability"},"modified":"2026-09-16T16:07:12","modified_gmt":"2026-09-16T16:07:12","slug":"usability","status":"publish","type":"encyclopedia","link":"https:\/\/www.arimetrics.com\/en\/digital-glossary\/usability","title":{"rendered":"Usability"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"boxpad alignright wp-image-15069 size-full\" src=\"https:\/\/www.arimetrics.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/11\/23-1.jpg\" alt=\"Usability\" width=\"300\" height=\"300\" style=\"margin-top:0;\" \/> <strong>Definition:<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Usability<\/strong> is the extent to which specified people can use a product, system or service to achieve defined goals effectively, efficiently and with satisfaction in a particular context of use.<\/p>\n<p>It is not limited to whether a website or application appears simple. It depends on who uses it, what they are trying to do, which device and environment they use, and what knowledge or limitations they have. The same product can therefore be usable for one group and difficult for another.<\/p>\n\n<h2>What usability involves<\/h2>\n<p>The ISO 9241-11 framework places effectiveness, efficiency and satisfaction at the core of usability. A practical evaluation also examines attributes that help explain those outcomes:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Effectiveness:<\/strong> whether people complete the task correctly and achieve the intended goal.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Efficiency:<\/strong> how much time, effort or how many steps they need to do so.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Satisfaction:<\/strong> how they rate comfort, confidence and freedom from frustration while using the product.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Learnability:<\/strong> how long it takes them to understand the system and perform a task for the first time.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Error prevention and recovery:<\/strong> whether the system prevents mistakes, explains them clearly and allows people to correct them without losing their work.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>The relative importance of each aspect changes with the context. Preventing errors may be the priority in a critical procedure, while reducing time and unnecessary steps may matter more in a repeated task.<\/p>\n<h2>Differences from intuitive interfaces, UX and accessibility<\/h2>\n<p>These concepts are related, but they are not equivalent:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>An <strong>intuitive interface<\/strong> seems easy to understand because it uses familiar conventions, patterns or prior knowledge. This impression depends on each person&#8217;s experience. A familiar interface can still be slow, cause errors or make complex tasks difficult.<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.arimetrics.com\/en\/digital-glossary\/user-experience\">User experience<\/a>, or UX, is broader: it includes perceptions and responses before, during and after use. Usability is an assessable dimension of that experience, but good usability alone does not guarantee that a product is useful, appealing or valuable.<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.arimetrics.com\/en\/digital-glossary\/web-accessibility\">Web accessibility<\/a> aims to ensure that people with disabilities can perceive, understand, navigate and interact with the web. Accessibility and usability overlap and should be addressed together, but neither replaces the other.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Calling an interface intuitive or visually clear does not therefore prove that it is usable. Its performance must be checked with representative users, tasks and contexts.<\/p>\n<h2>How to evaluate usability<\/h2>\n<p>An evaluation should begin with specific goals and tasks. Methods are selected according to the product stage, the risk involved in the interaction and the questions that need to be answered. Common methods include:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Usability testing:<\/strong> representative participants perform tasks while their actions, difficulties and comments are observed. Tests can be moderated or unmoderated, in person or remote.<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.arimetrics.com\/en\/digital-glossary\/heuristic-analysis\"><strong>Heuristic analysis<\/strong><\/a>: specialists review the interface against established design principles to identify problems before or after testing it with users.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Cognitive walkthrough:<\/strong> reviewers examine each step to determine whether a new user would know what to do, find the appropriate control and understand the result.<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.arimetrics.com\/en\/digital-glossary\/card-sorting\"><strong>Card sorting<\/strong><\/a> and tree testing: these methods investigate how information is grouped and found, so they are particularly useful for information architecture and navigation.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Surveys and interviews:<\/strong> these capture perceptions, expectations and satisfaction and help interpret what was observed during tasks.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Results can be measured through:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>The rate of tasks completed correctly.<\/li>\n<li>The time, steps or effort required.<\/li>\n<li>The number and severity of errors and whether users recover from them.<\/li>\n<li>Satisfaction or perceived ease after the task.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Analytics, heatmaps and session recordings provide behavioural signals, but they do not explain the cause of a problem on their own. Similarly, an <a href=\"https:\/\/www.arimetrics.com\/en\/digital-glossary\/a-b-testing\">A\/B test<\/a> compares the performance of two variants, but it does not replace usability testing designed to discover why people encounter difficulties.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Definition: Usability is the extent to which specified people can use a product, system or service to achieve defined goals effectively, efficiently and with satisfaction in a particular context of use. It is not limited to whether a website or application appears simple. It depends on who uses it, what they are trying to do, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"template":"","encyclopedia-tag":[1286],"class_list":["post-21616","encyclopedia","type-encyclopedia","status-publish","hentry","encyclopedia-tag-ux-research"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.arimetrics.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/encyclopedia\/21616","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.arimetrics.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/encyclopedia"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.arimetrics.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/encyclopedia"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.arimetrics.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.arimetrics.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21616"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"encyclopedia-tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.arimetrics.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/encyclopedia-tag?post=21616"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}