Donna Maurer has written our KM Column article this month, answering the question: what is usability? To quote:

‘Usability’ is widely seen as the answer to many of these frustrating interactions with technology. There are usability books, websites, guidelines and checklists, so why are products and systems getting harder to use instead of easier?

There is some confusion about what usability is and whether businesses are ‘doing usability’ or not. There are many aspects to usability – more than just running a usability test at the end of a project.

This article provides an overview of what usability is (and what it is not). It provides ideas on how to include more usability activities in projects and the types of activities that are needed in order to create more usable systems.