International standards and usability measurement

The current trend of increased web usage has recognized the need of usable websites. A site containing relevant information may not gain user acceptance if the user finds it difficult to use. A quantifiable measure of usability can provide a measurable estimate of improvement required in the website. It can also help in comparing different websites. This measure would gain wider acceptability, if obtained, by applying the international standards of measurement. This paper measures usability quantitatively using the international standard ISO/IEC TR 9126-2. Metrics specified in the standards are used to measure the four sub-characteristics of usability, “Learnability”, “Operability”, “Understandability” and “Attractiveness” for an academic website. It was found that the “Learnability” level of the website was very low, as compared to the Understandability level. This is not in conformation with the standards, which mention the latter to be an indicator of the former. The significance and relevance of each metric to usability of the website was then examined in this light. The study also highlight the long due need of standardizing the process of usability measurement.