Usability Metrics

For practical tips on collecting metrics in usability tests, see A Practical Guide to Measuring Usability (Sauro, 2010) and Measuring the User Experience (Tullis and Albert, 2008).

A combined usability metric can be treated just like any other metric and can be used advantageously as a component of executive dashboards or for determining statistical significance between products

Existing data rarely tells the story the design leaders need to tell. These metrics measure, at best, outputs

These UX metrics show activity in the design. They may occasionally show improvements in a few business metrics such as sales revenues or onboarding rates. However, the metrics won’t likely show if an improved design actually makes a differe

Completion rates, also called success rates, are the most fundamental of usability metrics (Nielsen, 2001). They are typically collected as a binary measure of task success (coded as 1) or task failure (coded as 0). You report completion rates on a task by dividing the number of users who successfully complete the task by the total number who attem

Usability has an international standard definition in ISO 9241 pt. 11 (ISO, 1998), which defined usability as the extent to which a product can be used by specified users to achieve specified goals with effectiveness, efficiency, and satisfaction in a specified context of use.

Usability testing remains a central way of determining whether users are accomplishing their goals.