Understanding users . . . Improving technology . . . Enhancing organizational outcomes . . .

Services that answer your questions:

Design Reviews Does my interface violate usability "best-practices"?
Usability Testing How well can users perform tasks using my interface? What usability problems do users have?
User-Based Product Requirements How do users think about and perform the task now, before the interface is (re)designed?
Interface Design How can I improve my interface?

For improving interfaces to a variety of software and hardware products:

  • web-sites; application software
  • medical devices; hand-held devices; in-vehicle information systems; consumer electronics

For an effective interface, use these usability services "early and often"

  • Designing a usable interface is hard. It often takes 5 to 6 iterations of a design to make it truly usable. (Norman, The Design of Everyday Things)
  • If you do usability assessment only by fielding user complaints and fixing your product after releasing the first version, your product may fail in the marketplace before completing those 5 to 6 iterations.
  • A much more effective design process is to proactively discover usability problems during design by repeatedly using the usability services described above. The goal is to go through 5 to 6 iterations of design followed by usability assessment before the first product release.
  • The earlier you use these services in the design process, the cheaper it is to fix the usability problems discovered. Rapid prototying makes it possible to do usability testing very early in the design process.

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