Usability Assessment: How to Measure the Usability of Products, Services, and Systems (Users' Guides to Human Factors and Ergonomics Methods) First Edition

This is an excellent guide to every aspect and step of conducting usability assessments. Kortum conveys the information in a clear and concise manner while maintaining a likable, conversational tone, which makes reading and understanding the book easy and engaging. This is certainly the best required reading I have been assigned for a class.

I had to have a basic understanding of usability for a job. I was able to ready this book in one day and now feel I have the knowledge to run a simple usability assessment and the skills to build upon for a more complex usability assessment. The book was written in common language, making it easy to follow along.

I have many hours of professional experience doing usability testing for high profile emergency management control rooms. I am even a co-author of a chapter on usability testing in a college textbook for Human Factors. I found this book to be the best book on the subject I have read. Even as a practitioner in usability testing I learned some things that I will use on my next assessment. Additionally, it was written in an easy to read manner that my grandmother with no knowledge in human engineering methods could understand. Great use of time reading this book.

* I personally know Dr. Kortum, but I will try to be unbiased in this review.I was a student in several of Dr. Kortum's (highly-popular) graduate level classes, and I was frequently impressed by his rich experience of human factors research in both industry and academia and his sophisticated insights into usability research. This book is so far the best one that I have ever found that provides a succinct all-in-one handbook for practitioners. It is highly practical, with many real-world cases, but is also deep enough to engage even the most experienced usability professionals in some theoretical discussions. I especially enjoyed reading the standalone sections in the book that discuss FAQs in usability testing (e.g., Should we always do heuristic assessments and cognitive walkthrough before user testing?) or rightfully points out caveats in some common practices in user experience research (e.g., Should we always create personas for a product? Should the think-aloud protocol always be used in user testing?). Some of the common mistakes discussed in the book are so ubiquitous among user experience/ human factors professionals that I wish every practitioner could spend several hours reading this book. For people who are new to usability testing, this book is also an easy starting place, with only about 100 pages. The list of suggested reading at the end of each chapter is also very helpful.

If you want to learn how to conduct rigorous system usability assessments, and the science behind the methods, this is the definitive book. After reading this book, you will be able to conduct usability tests on products and systems to understand 1) how they quantitatively compare to other tested systems and 2) what problems need to be fixed to minimize human error and make the systems very easy to use. I personally have used the exact methods employed in this guide in my peer reviewed, published usability research. I should also add the book is easy to read and concise. I appreciate that it leaves out fuzzy, qualitative user-experience methods that can be found in other printed materials. I can’t say enough about this user guide. I wish it was around when I was a human factors/HCI graduate student learning about system usability. I could have read this single text and then jumped into the lab!Currently Amazon.com only offers the Kindle edition. I wish they would also sell the printed version.

A fantastic resource for a beginner or returning professional in usability. As a graduate student in the first year of a PhD program, this book has become a valuable assett. It touches upon all the basic techniques in usability (e.g. heuristics, cognitive walkthrough ect) and does so in a way that is specific enough to be a good guide but general enough it can be applied to multiple domains. It makes strong connections and provides a great jumping point for other readings in human factors and HCI (Nielson, Norman ect). I will be referencing this book for years and highly recommend it for any student of usability or any professional needing to deepen their knowledge of usability techniques.

Love the fact that this tiny book conveys so much valuable information about conducting usability assessments. Dr. Kortum described the procedure of conducting a test in great details and supplied real world examples to support the theories. This book served as a checklist for me when I did my own study, and it was very helpful in guiding me through the steps!