A Model for Quantifying Usability Metrics: An Effective Approach

Quality comprises all characteristics and significant features of a product or an activity which relate to the satisfying of given requirements. Software quality metrics are a subset of software metrics that focus on the quality aspects of the product, process, and project. Quality in use (usability) is recognized as an important quality factor for interactive software systems. This paper presents a quality model for the quantification of usability matrices in software quality models and discusses the current approaches to usability metrics and then reviews existing usability standards and models while highlighting the limitations and complementarities of the various standards. Paper further explains how these different models can be unified into a single hierarchical model of usability, and proposes a new approach for quantifying usability of software product. It proposes a quality model as a framework for specifying and identifying quality in use components, which include different factors, criteria, metrics and data defined in different Human Computer Interface and Software Engineering models.