the.com/usability
If users need a manual, the product already failed.
means The quality of being easy for real people to learn, use, and not screw up — measured by how smoothly actual humans get things done with it.
from Built from 'usable' plus the noun-forming suffix '-ity,' both tracing back to Latin uti, 'to use.' The word itself is old and unremarkable, but 'usability' hardened into a technical term in the 20th century as engineers and psychologists split off from general 'ease of use' talk to build something measurable — task completion, error rates, satisfaction scores. It's less a poetic coinage than a discipline naming itself.
- origin
- Formalized as a field in the 1980s with computers
- golden rule
- Don't make people think, just let them act
- myth
- Pretty is not the same as usable
- test
- If your grandma can't use it, redesign it