Usability testing is a technique used to evaluate a product by testing it on users. This can be seen as an irreplaceable usability practice, since it gives direct input on how real users use the system. This is in contrast with usability inspection methods where experts use different methods to evaluate a user interface without involving users.

Usability testing focuses on measuring a human-made product's capacity to meet its intended purpose. Examples of products that commonly benefit from usability testing are web sites or web applications, computer interfaces, documents, or devices. Usability testing measures the usability, or ease of use, of a specific object or set of objects, whereas general human-computer interaction studies attempt to formulate universal principles.

A Xerox Palo Alto Research Center (PARC) employee wrote that PARC used extensive usability testing in creating the Xerox Star, introduced in 1981. Only about 25,000 were sold, leading many to consider the Xerox Star a commercial failure.

Similar to 0 things you like: