Usability Cost-Benefit Analysis for Information Technology Applications and Decision Making

Background

Usability is defined as one of the main quality attributes for Information Technology applications, software products, information systems and online services (Marghescu, 2009). There are many international standards and recognized definitions of usability and user-centered design, which all have different focuses (Marghescu, 2009) First international standard referring to the usability defined it as the capability of the product to be understood, learned, used by, and attractive to the user, when used under specified conditions (ISO 9126). The second international standard defining usability is the standard ISO 9241-11, where usability is defined as being the extent to which a product can be used by specified users to achieve specified goals with effectiveness, efficiency, and satisfaction in a specified context of use (ISO 9241). The third common usability definition is by Nielsen and Schneiderman, who define usability as consisting of five quality components: learnability, efficiency, memorability, errors, and satisfaction (Nielsen 1993, Schneiderman 1998). Usability can be achieved through a user-centered design process, usability activities (e.g., usability testing, paper prototyping, heuristic evaluation), and having an overall focus on usability issues through the entire development process (c.f. Rajanen et al. 2017, Rajanen & Rajanen 2017). Furthermore, since the turn of the millennia, the concept of user experience (UX) has been introduced to take into account the emotions and attitudes of user about using a particular product, system or service (ISO 13407, Marghescu 2009).