Empirical Investigation of Software Usability

Usability of the software products becomes currently one of the most important issues in software development as a whole. Due to the low entry level for new product developers and growing popularity of FLOSS software, the IT field has witnessed a vast increase in numbers of new software solutions. Choosing the software for a task is no longer a question of functionality only, but there are other aspects to be considered. Among others, such as the total cost of ownership, support and user base available, the most prominent one is the concept of usability. At the first glance, the issue of usability might seem less relevant than it is in reality, but this misconception is easily dismissed. An usable software solution provides not only gains to the software company, but more importantly – to the end users. The developer profits are obvious – the more usable software sells much better and a good fame spreads also upon other products of the same producer. Usability has also been proved to reduce the amount of helpdesk calls and support requests, which once again cuts down the total cost of ownership. Finally, usable software is deemed to have a longer lifetime and its users are more likely to purchase new versions of the same solution. From the user point of view, the benefits of usable software are indispensable. The most crucial one is naturally the average time of completing the task, which in the contemporary, fast-paced world is not something to dismiss easily. The other aspect is the learning curve, as even the most functional program would fail miserably if it is very difficult to master. It would appear that as usability is such an important feature, the extensive measures would have to be taken in order to ensure that the final product is as usable as only possible. Regretfully, the solution to this problem is not such an easy one. Assessing the usability at the development stage (or even postdevelopment) is a problematic task for a multitude of reasons. The first reason is that usability is a volatile concept and there are large discrepancies among different usability theorists in the opinion what shall the usability metrics be. The other reason is even more concrete – as the development is a dynamic action, one cannot assure usability of the ready product without conducting regular assessment during the process. It would not be enough to conduct it only once or twice, as if the usability concerns are not addressed within a short time span, then they might not be addressable at all. Finally, the usability assessment methods also do vary largely among different assessors.