ABSTRACT
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In recent years, many companies have realized that there is more to a successful product than the product being rich in features. As software becomes more complex, it is important to narrow the focus to the expected user, and not on the technical system. e relationship between the product and its users is addressed by usability. Quite often, usability is dened as a quality attribute that assesses how easy user interfaces are to use (cf. Nielsen, 2003). However, usability is more than just the quality of the user interface; it is all about building products that people can and will use. Usability describes the entire eld of research that is concerned with the interaction of technical systems where users are performing tasks, such as a mobile Web site or application. Jakob Nielsen, a guru on the subject, denes the term as follows:
Usability is the measure of the quality of the user experience when interacting with something-whether a Website, a traditional software application, or any other device the user can operate in some way or another. (Nielsen, 1997)
Usability is also an umbrella term that can have dierent meanings depending on the context (cf. Spencer, 2004). On the one hand, usability is an attribute of the quality of a system; on the other, it is a process or set of techniques used during the project. e second aspect is also known as usability engineering.
