Measuring usability

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Measuring usability: preference vs. performance

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Communications of the ACM archive
Volume 37 , Issue 4 (April 1994) table of contents

Pages: 66 - 75

Year of Publication: 1994

ISSN:0001-0782

Authors

Jakob Nielsen	Bellcore, Morristown, NJ
Jonathan Levy	Univ. of California, San Diego

Publisher

ACM New York, NY, USA

Bibliometrics

Downloads (6 Weeks): 52, Downloads (12 Months): 314, Citation Count: 32

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REFERENCES

Note: OCR errors may be found in this Reference List extracted from the full text article. ACM has opted to expose the complete List rather than only correct and linked references.

	1	Anderson, N.S. Methods for combining human factors research results: Meta-analysis. In Proceedings of the Human Factors Socity Thirty-Third Annuul Meeting Santa Monica, Caif. Human Factors Socity, 1989, pp. 594-596.
	2	Chambers, J.M., Ceveland, W.S., Kleiner, B., and Turkey, P.A.Graphical Methods for Data Anaysis. Wadsworth Internationa Group, Belmont, Calif., 1983.
	3	Grudin, J. and Macean, A. Adapting a psychophysical method to measure performance and preference tradeoffs in humen-computer interaction. In Proceeding of the INTERACT'84 First IFIP Conference on Humen- Computer Interaction. IFIP, Washington, D.C., pp. 737-741.
	4	Hunter, J.E., Schmidt, F.L., and Jackson, G.B. Meta-analysis: Cumulative Research Findings Across Studies. Sage Pubication, Newbury Park, Calif., 1982.
	5	LaLomia, M.J. and Sidewski, J.B. Measurements of computer satisfaction, Literecy, and aptitudes: A review Int. J. Hum. Comput. Interaction 2,3 (1990), 231-253.
	6	LLandauer, T.K. Research methods in humen-computer interaction. In Handbook of Humen-Computer Interaction. Elsevier Science publishers, Amsterdam, 1988, pp. 905-928.
	7	Macean, A., Barnard, P.J., and Wilson, M.D. Evaluating the humen interface of a data entry system: User choise and performance measures Yied different tradfe-off functions. In Peope and Computers: Designing the Interface. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK, 1985.
	8	Jakob Nielsen, Usability Engineering, Morgan Kaufmann Publishers Inc., San Francisco, CA, 1993
	9	Jakob Nielsen, Usability engineering at a discount, Proceedings of the third international conference on human-computer interaction on Designing and using human-computer interfaces and knowledge based systems (2nd ed.), p.394-401, September 1989, Boston, Massachusetts, United States
	10	Nielson, J.What do users really want? Int. J. Hum. Comput. Interaction 1, 2 (1989), 137-147.
	11	Jakob Nielsen, The Usability Engineering Life Cycle, Computer, v.25 n.3, p.12-22, March 1992 [doi>10.1109/2.121503]
	12	J. Nielsen , R. L. Mack , K. H. Bergendorff , N. L. Grischkowsky, Integrated software usage in the professional work environment: evidence from questionnaires and interviews, Proceedings of the SIGCHI conference on Human factors in computing systems, p.162-167, April 13-17, 1986, Boston, Massachusetts, United States
	13	Rogers, E.M. Methodology for metaresearch. In Organizationa Communication Vo. 10. Abstracts, Analysis, and overview. Sage Publications, Beverly Hills, Calif., 1985, pp. 13-33.
	14	Robert W. Root , Steve Draper, Questionnaires as a software evaluation tool, Proceedings of the SIGCHI conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, p.83-87, December 12-15, 1983, Boston, Massachusetts, United States [doi>10.1145/800045.801586]
	15	Whiteside, J., Bennett, J., and Holtzblatt, K. Usabiity engineering: Our experience and evoution. In Handbook of Human-Computer Interaction. Elsevier Science publishers, Amsterdam, 1988, pp. 791-817.
	16	R. M. Young , A. MacLean, Choosing between methods: analysing the user's decision space in terms of schemas and linear models, Proceedings of the SIGCHI conference on Human factors in computing systems, p.139-143, May 15-19, 1988, Washington, D.C., United States [doi>10.1145/57167.57190]

CITED BY 32

	Kristiina Karvonen, The beauty of simplicity, Proceedings on the 2000 conference on Universal Usability, p.85-90, November 16-17, 2000, Arlington, Virginia, United States
	George V. Kissel, The effect of computer experience on subjective and objective software usability measures, Conference companion on Human factors in computing systems, p.284-285, May 07-11, 1995, Denver, Colorado, United States
	Alvin W. Yeo, Global-software development lifecycle: an exploratory study, Proceedings of the SIGCHI conference on Human factors in computing systems, p.104-111, March 2001, Seattle, Washington, United States
	James Blustein, Automatically generated hypertext versions of scholarly articles and their evaluation, Proceedings of the eleventh ACM on Hypertext and hypermedia, p.201-210, May 30-June 03, 2000, San Antonio, Texas, United States
	Morten Hertzum , Erik Frøkjær, Browsing and querying in online documentation: a study of user interfaces and the interaction process, ACM Transactions on Computer-Human Interaction (TOCHI), v.3 n.2, p.136-161, June 1996
	Susan Harrison , Phillipa Mancey, Optimal amount of time for obtaining accurate usability-test results, Proceedings of the 16th annual international conference on Computer documentation, p.173-179, September 24-26, 1998, Quebec, Quebec, Canada
	Peter N. Hyland, Development of a task model for the analysis and retrieval of statistical data, Computing information technology: the human side, Idea Group Publishing, Hershey, PA, 2003
	Robert Pearson , Paul van Schaik, The effect of spatial layout of and link colour in web pages on performance in a visual search task and an interactive search task, International Journal of Human-Computer Studies, v.59 n.3, p.327-353, September 2003
	Erik Frøkjær , Morten Hertzum , Kasper Hornbæk, Measuring usability: are effectiveness, efficiency, and satisfaction really correlated?, Proceedings of the SIGCHI conference on Human factors in computing systems, p.345-352, April 01-06, 2000, The Hague, The Netherlands
	Victoria Interrante , Henry Fuchs , Stephen M. Pizer, Conveying the 3D Shape of Smoothly Curving Transparent Surfaces via Texture, IEEE Transactions on Visualization and Computer Graphics, v.3 n.2, p.98-117, April 1997
	Jeff Sauro , Erika Kindlund, A method to standardize usability metrics into a single score, Proceedings of the SIGCHI conference on Human factors in computing systems, April 02-07, 2005, Portland, Oregon, USA
	Barbara M. Wildemuth , Gary Marchionini , Meng Yang , Gary Geisler , Todd Wilkens , Anthony Hughes , Richard Gruss, How fast is too fast?: evaluating fast forward surrogates for digital video, Proceedings of the 3rd ACM/IEEE-CS joint conference on Digital libraries, May 27-31, 2003, Houston, Texas
	Moshe Zviran , Chanan Glezer , Itay Avni, User satisfaction from commercial web sites: the effect of design and use, Information and Management, v.43 n.2, p.157-178, March 2006
	Stefania Bandini , Marcello Sarini , Carla Simone , Giuseppe Vizzari, WWW in the Small, World Wide Web, v.10 n.4, p.471-501, December 2007
	Tamar Ben-Bassat , Joachim Meyer , Noam Tractinsky, Economic and subjective measures of the perceived value of aesthetics and usability, ACM Transactions on Computer-Human Interaction (TOCHI), v.13 n.2, p.210-234, June 2006
	Christine E. Wania , Michael E. Atwood , Katherine W. McCain, How do design and evaluation interrelate in HCI research?, Proceedings of the 6th ACM conference on Designing Interactive systems, June 26-28, 2006, University Park, PA, USA
	Robert Leithiser, A relational database model for representation of formal specifications, Proceedings of the 44th annual southeast regional conference, March 10-12, 2006, Melbourne, Florida
	Richard L. Hazlett , Joey Benedek, Measuring emotional valence to understand the user's experience of software, International Journal of Human-Computer Studies, v.65 n.4, p.306-314, April, 2007
	Xiang Fang , Clyde W. Holsapple, An empirical study of web site navigation structures' impacts on web site usability, Decision Support Systems, v.43 n.2, p.476-491, March, 2007
	Kasper Hornbæk , Effie Lai-Chong Law, Meta-analysis of correlations among usability measures, Proceedings of the SIGCHI conference on Human factors in computing systems, April 28-May 03, 2007, San Jose, California, USA
	Martin Ebner , Andreas Holzinger, Successful implementation of user-centered game based learning in higher education: An example from civil engineering, Computers & Education, v.49 n.3, p.873-890, November, 2007
	T. Alcock , N. Millard, Self-service -- but is it good to talk?, BT Technology Journal, v.24 n.1, p.70-78, January 2006
	Linda Strachan , John Anderson , Murray Sneesby , Mark Evans, Minimalist User Modelling in a Complex Commercial Software System, User Modeling and User-Adapted Interaction, v.10 n.2-3, p.109-146, 2000
	Effie Lai-Chong Law , Borka Jerman Blazic , Matic Pipan, Analyses of user rationality and system learnability: performing task variants in user tests, Behaviour & Information Technology, v.26 n.5, p.421-436, September 2007
	Maiju Markova , Anne Aula , Teija Vainio , Heli Wigelius , Minna Kulju, MoBiS-Q: a tool for evaluating the success of mobile business services, Proceedings of the 9th international conference on Human computer interaction with mobile devices and services, p.238-245, September 09-12, 2007, Singapore
	Diane Kelly , David J. Harper , Brian Landau, Questionnaire mode effects in interactive information retrieval experiments, Information Processing and Management: an International Journal, v.44 n.1, p.122-141, January, 2008
	Ofir Turel, Contextual effects on the usability dimensions of mobile value-added services: a conceptual framework, International Journal of Mobile Communications, v.4 n.3, p.309-332, February 2006
	Diane Kelly , Chirag Shah , Cassidy R. Sugimoto , Earl W. Bailey , Rachael A. Clemens , Ann K. Irvine , Nicholas A. Johnson , Weimao Ke , Sanghee Oh , Anezka Poljakova , Marcos A. Rodriguez , Megan G. van Noord , Yan Zhang, Effects of performance feedback on users' evaluations of an interactive IR system, Proceedings of the second international symposium on Information interaction in context, October 14-17, 2008, London, United Kingdom
	April Savoy , Robert W. Proctor , Gavriel Salvendy, Information retention from PowerPoint^™ and traditional lectures, Computers & Education, v.52 n.4, p.858-867, May, 2009
	Ronald Kainda , Ivan Flechais , A. W. Roscoe, Usability and security of out-of-band channels in secure device pairing protocols, Proceedings of the 5th Symposium on Usable Privacy and Security, July 15-17, 2009, Mountain View, California
	Diane Kelly, Methods for Evaluating Interactive Information Retrieval Systems with Users, Foundations and Trends in Information Retrieval, v.3 n.1—2, p.1-224, January 2009
	Kasper Hornbæk, Current practice in measuring usability: Challenges to usability studies and research, International Journal of Human-Computer Studies, v.64 n.2, p.79-102, February 2006

INDEX TERMS

Primary Classification:
C. Computer Systems Organization
C.4 PERFORMANCE OF SYSTEMS
Subjects: Measurement techniques

Additional Classification:
H. Information Systems
H.1 MODELS AND PRINCIPLES
H.1.2 User/Machine Systems
Subjects: Human factors

General Terms:
Human Factors, Measurement, Performance

REVIEW

"Richard A. Baker, Jr. : Reviewer"

Nielsen and Levy describe a metastudy comparing the measured usability of subjective preferences and objective performance. The paper is very disappointing in its content. Much of the text concentrates on describing how the meta more...

Collaborative Colleagues:

Jakob Nielsen: colleagues

Jonathan Levy: colleagues

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