Defined Usability Goals and Objectives

Designing a product to be useful must be a structured and systematic process, beginning with high-level goals and moving to specific objectives. You cannot achieve a goal — usability or otherwise — if it remains nebulous and ill -conceived. Even the term usability itself must be defined with your organization. An operational definition of what makes your product usable (tied to successful completion criteria, as we will talk about in Chapter 5) may include: 

■ Usefulness
■ Efficiency
■ Effectiveness
■ Satisfaction
■ Accessibility

Thus bringing us full circle to our original description of what makes a product usable. Now let's review some of the major techniques and methods a usability specialist uses to ensure a user-centered design