Usability Overview

Technology everyone can use

Technology permeates most of our daily lives; from education to employment; from recreation to commerce. We rely increasingly on technology to communicate, find information and interact with society. Yet all too often, rather than simplifying a task, technology complicates it.

Ensuring your website or software is easy-to-use will:

• help you to reach your target audience
• increase your customer base
• create a better perception of your company and your products or services
• result in easier user acceptance
• increase productivity
• reduce mistakes and the time spent correcting them
• shorten the training time
• reduce support costs
• result in a more efficient development cycle.

We've all experienced the frustration of a bad user interface - whether it be a video recorder, a software application, a washing machine or a website. Experiences like this make us turn to a competitor, resulting in financial losses for the company providing the product or service. How many times have you heard someone say they always buy a particular brand of mobile phone because 'it's easy to use'? How long will you spend scanning a web page for information before trying a different one? The average is four seconds.

Focussing on usability can directly increase influence to success of your business.