Usability Review: A Simple, Inexpensive Way to Start
Usability Review Defined
Wouldn’t be great if you could quickly find out if your product or service has any serious user experience issues or if there are easy design changes that would give you the most usability bang for your buck? This technique does just that. A usability review is a fast, inexpensive way to identify user experience issues that will decrease your users’ ability to use, benefit from and enjoy your product. This is a technique we commonly use with our start-up and small business clients who need a fast, inexpensive solution.
Usability reviews are especially powerful when paired with a visual design review.
The Importance of Usability
Putting in some effort to increase the usability of your product or service has been shown to produce a return on investment in the order of 3:1 to 100:1! *
* Data quoted from the Usability Professional Association’s website,
January ’08.
The payoffs include:
- Fewer last-minute design changes
- Usable, appealing, and effective designs
- Simple, less costly documentation
- Credible marketing claims
- Compelling product demonstrations
- Increased sales
- Reduced need for customer support
- Longer market life
