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Software Engineering vocabulary · Testing

Usability

Meaning in software engineering, with examples

/ˌjuːzəˈbɪləti/nounCore term

In software engineering, usability means: How easily, quickly and successfully people can use a product to complete a task, and how satisfied they feel while doing it.

In Turkish: kullanılabilirlik, kullanım kolaylığı

How it is used

Used in design reviews, test reports and job ads: usability issues, usability problems, good usability. The ISO 9241-11 standard describes it through three qualities: effectiveness, efficiency and satisfaction.

Example sentences

  1. The design looks great, but we found serious usability problems in the payment step.

  2. Small changes to labels can improve usability a lot.

Common collocations

  • usability issue
  • improve usability
  • usability problem
  • usability expert
  • usability testingA research method in which real users try to complete tasks with a product or prototype while a researcher watches, to find out where they struggle.
  • user experienceHow easily people reach their goals and how they feel when they use a product, service or website, from the first visit to getting help later.
  • heuristic evaluationA review in which usability experts check an interface against a list of accepted design principles, called heuristics, to find problems without testing with users.
  • accessibilityThe practice of making websites usable by everyone, including people who are blind or deaf, have limited movement or use assistive technology.

This word in other fields

The same English word can have a different meaning in another field:

More terms: Testing

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