Usability Specialist
The Usability Specialist studies the ease of use of an application and makes recommendations for improvement. Usability may be approached early in the development lifecycle (user-centered design or usability engineering) or later in the design process (usability testing).
The usability specialist employs a number of evaluation methods to determine the learnability, efficiency, memorability, error recovery and overall satisfaction of an application.
Application Usability Testing / Usability Validation involves testing an application from the user's point of view. It focuses on measuring software’s ability to meet its intended purpose. Usability testing gives direct input on how real users use the system.
The usability testing process focuses on four key areas of assessment:
- Efficiency – how quickly was the user able to complete the task, and in how many steps
- Accuracy – how many errors were made in completing the task, and how severe were they
- Recall – how much did the user remember of the process to complete the task
- Emotional response – did working through the task stress the user, or were they confident in the process
Although some aspects of usability testing can be objectively quantified, much of it is subjective. Therefore usability specialists must either understand how to determine the wants, needs and expectations of users or be able to work with those who do, such as interfacing with customer service and/or marketing teams.
If your organization is in need of usability testing or broader IT management solutions, TDK Technologies can help you achieve your objectives by leveraging our usability specialists, IT managers and analysts in staff augmentation or project outsourcing models. To explore a mutually beneficial business opportunity, contact us here.
If you are a usability specialist looking for employment opportunities with an IT management market leader, please submit your resume here.
