Usability: Adoption, Measurement, Value

We searched for the application of usability in the literature with a focus on adoption, measurements employed, and demonstrated value. Five human factors domains served as a platform for our reflection, which included the last 20 years.

As usability studies continue to accumulate, there has been only a little past reflection on usability and contributions across a variety of applications. Our research provides a background for general usability, and we target specific usability research subareas within transportation, aging populations, autistic populations, telehealth, and cybersecurity.

"Usability" research was explored across five different domains within human factors. The goal was not to perform an exhaustive review but, rather, sample usability practices within several specific subareas. We focused on answering three questions: How was usability adopted? How was it measured? How was it framed in terms of value?

We found that usability is very domain specific. Usability benchmarking studies and empirical standards are rare. The value associated with improving usability ranged widely-from monetary benefits to saving lives. Thus, researchers are motivated to further improve usability practices. A number of data collection and interpretation challenges still call for solutions.

Findings offer insight into the development of usability, as applied across a variety of subdomains. Our reflection ought to inform future theory development efforts. We are concerned about the lack of established benchmarks, which can help ground data interpretation. Future research should address this gap in the literature. We note that our findings can be used to develop better training materials for future usability researchers.