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Standardizing Usability

I talk to a lot of clients. My job is to convince them there is value in measuring and improving the ease-of-use (usefulness is another topic) of their applications. My job has gotten easier over the last 5 years because the concept has been mostly accepted, but I keep running up against the same question. If user testing is quantifiable why isn’t there a standardized metric through which we can compare sites against each other? I talked with my team and we embarked on a journey that began to understand what it would take to create a standardized usability metric. We’ve made some progress but realize that one company could not sponsor such a metric with any credibility.

So I asked Jennifer Hoppenrath to post on our favorite HCI forums to see what the temperature was in the various communities. She came into my office last week, sad face in tow, and explained that she had been flamed by every community she contacted. Apparently, standardizing the way we measure usability is a sales trick? I was flabbergasted that some posts even stated that their method of heuristic analysis was a competitive differentiator (yes, that’s a sales trick). Don’t forget that heuristic means “best practice” and therefore suggests a larger shared pool of wisdom. How can that exist if we don’t collaborate to manage the quality of our collective work?

I’m excited that the HCI community is passionate about their work, but I really think its time for us to pull our heads out of the sand and address our customers’ needs. Maybe do a better job? Why can’t we work together to create a standardized usability metric? I think everyone would win.

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Posted by Joseph Juhnke on July 12, 2007

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