Usability Methods for Designing a Computer-assisted Data Collection Instrument for the Cpi

The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) is developing a Computer-Assisted Data Collection (CADC) instrument for the Commodities and Services (C&S) survey for the Consumer Price Index (CPI). The instrument must be flexible enough to handle a variety of procedures and situations, but it must also be logical and useful for the data collectors and provide tools to help to ensure data quality. Therefore, it was critical to incorporate usability into the design process. This paper describes the usability techniques we used, including a description of how we tailored some of them to the situations we faced. The paper also discusses the benefits we found by including usability engineering in the development process. So far, the feedback from the field has been predominantly positive, suggesting that our usability methods are leading to a useful and usable instrument.