A methodology for developing a usability index of consumer electronic products

Abstract

As the consumer electronic products become complicated, multi-functional, and intelligent, usability also becomes major issues for product designers. Although a wide variety of usability evaluation methods have been developed and applied, most methods focus oil finding usability problems and comparing usability between products in terms of performance and preference. This limitation leads to the need for a new methodology for estimating the level of usability in a quantitative and objective manner. In this study, a usability index was defined as a normalized value representing the level of usability of a product. In addition, a methodology for developing a usability index of consumer electronic products was proposed. The methodology consists of classifying usability dimensions, developing usability measures, and building usability index models. A case study on digital videodisc players was conducted to demonstrate the usefulness of the proposed methodology. The results showed that there existed a high correlation between the usability index and the subjective rating score. Providing a quantitative index to estimate the level of usability is a new approach in usability evaluation. Relevance to industry The proposed methodology can be applied to design phases to check the usability of prototypes when usability measures are identified. In addition, this methodology can also be applied to a finished product to provide a usability level in the form of a quantitative index. (C) 2007 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.