scope:

This International Standard is intended to be used to report the measures obtained from a test of usability as defined in ISO 9241-11: effectiveness, efficiency and satisfaction in a specified context of use.

NOTE Metrics for other more-detailed usability requirements can be found in ISO/IEC 9126 parts 2 and 3.

This International Standard is intended to be used by:

- usability professionals within supplier organizations to generate reports that can be used by customer organizations;

- customer organizations to verify that a particular report conforms to this International Standard;

- human factors or other usability professionals in customer organizations who are evaluating both the technical merit of usability tests and the usability of the products; and

- other technical professionals and managers in the customer organization who are using the test results to make business decisions about product suitability and purchase.

The Executive Summary and Introduction in 5.2 and 5.3 provide summary information for nonusability professionals and managers.

Subclauses 5.4 and 5.5 describe the test methodology and results in technical detail suitable for replication, and also support application of test data to questions about the product's expected costs and benefits. Understanding and interpreting these sections will require technical background in human factors or usability engineering for optimal use.

The report format assumes sound practice [1, 2] has been followed in the design and execution of the test. Test procedures which produce measures that summarize usability should be used, i.e. the test is summative in nature. Some usability evaluation methods, such as formative tests, are intended to identify problems rather than produce measures; the format is not structured to support the results of such testing methods.