Traveling in Cyberspace: Psychology of Software Design, Part II: Usability Evaluation

In my last column, I presented a description of the software design process and showed how psychology plays an important role in building successful interactive software. In this column I will discuss the second part of the design process,  usability evaluation.  Usability evaluation is a form of testing that is applied to the design of computer software, in particular, the interface with which users interact. Essentially, it allows the design team to determine the extent to which an interface will support users in doing whatever they need to do (whether work or play).