In any casual conversation about product usability, most people would agree that it’s good to have a product that works well and is easy to use. Every one of us has stories about how one particular product is so great and how one is unable to use another product. The issue is that although everyone understands user experience is important, most product organizations (especially IT products) pay little attention to it (which is a topic of separate discussion and discussed to some extent on my earlier post Can Product Usability be an afterthought?)
The best way to capture User Experience Quotient of your product is to do some Usability Testing. During usability testing try to capture metrics such as follows
- Task Success – This metrics is related to effectiveness and captures whether the task was completed successfully or not. Each task identified for the product should be scored individually as success or failure. To measure success, you need to know what constitutes success, so you should define the success criteria for each task prior to the data collection.
- Time-on-task – This metrics is related to efficiency and captures the amount of time spent in completing the task. The time it takes a user to perform a task says a lot about the usability of the product. In almost every situation, the faster a participant can complete a task, the better the experience I am sure you wouldn’t have heard user complaining that a task took less time than expected.
- Errors - Most errors are the outcomes of situation where the alternate task flows are not taken into consideration while designing the task workflow. In simple words errors are outcomes of incorrect actions, which lead to task failure. Errors can tell how many mistakes were made, where they were made within the product, how various designs produce different frequencies and types of errors, and generally how usable something really is.
- Efficiency – Along with Time-on-task metrics one should also measure how much effort is required to complete the task. This cab done by measuring the number of actions or steps that user takes in performing each task. An action can be clicking a link on a web page, pressing a button on a microwave oven or a mobile phone, or flipping a switch on an aircraft. The more actions taken by a participant, the more effort involved and the overall goal should be to minimize the effort required by reducing the number of actions required.
- Learn-ability – Users need to learn how to use product and easier the product to learn higher the chances of its success. Learnability is the extent to which something can be learned. It can be measured by looking at how much time and effort are required to become proficient with something.
- Issue-based Metrics – A usability issue might involve confusion around a particular term or piece of content, method of navigation, or just not noticing something that should be noticed. What do we mean by usability issues? There’s no simple definition, so here are some examples:
- Anything that prevents task completion
- Anything that takes someone ‘‘off-course’’
- Anything that creates some level of confusion
- Anything that produces an error
- Not seeing something that should be noticed
- Assuming something is correct when it is not
- Assuming a task is complete when it is not
- Performing the wrong action
- Misinterpreting some piece of content
- Not understanding the navigation
- Self Reported Metrics – Self-reported data gives the most important information about users’ perception of the system and their interaction with it. At an emotional level, the data may even tell something about how the users feel about the system. In many situations, these kinds of reactions are the main thing to care about. Even if it takes users forever to perform something with a system, if the experience makes them happy, that may be the only thing that matters. Some attributes of the product or website which can be obtained through self-reported metrics Visual appeal, Perceived efficiency, Usefulness, Enjoyment, Credibility, Appropriateness of terminology, Ease of navigation, and Responsiveness etc.
- Behavioral and Psychological Metrics – While using the product, most users do much more than just completing the task. They may laugh, groan, shout, grimace, smile, fidget in their chair, look aimlessly around, or drum their fingers on the objects. These are all behaviors that are potentially measurable and offer insights into the usability of the product. Most of this body language and verbalization can be observed and noted but some types of subtle or fleeting behavior are harder to observe.
- Live Web Metrics – When dealing with a live web based products, there’s a potential treasure trove of data available about what the visitors to application are actually doing—what pages they’re visiting, what links they’re clicking on, and what paths they’re following. The challenge usually isn’t getting the raw data but making sense of it.
This type of metrics will help you understand what perceptions users can form while using the product. Of course, this data can then be used to identify what needs to be done to make the product user friendly. After all, every product companies ultimate goal is to make the users think of using their product first (so that they can sell more of that product 
).
I recommend reading following blogs to improve your User Experience knowledge and then apply it rigorously while building products. I am confident that results will speak for themselves!
