Learnability (ISO 9241)
Why Learnability? | How You Can Achieve Learnability
Software should be easy to learn. Note, however, that software that is easily to learn not always is also efficient to use.
See also Understanding, Learning and Relearning for more information and examples on this topic.
Why Learnability?
A simple answer could be: Because ISO 9241 requires it. But why does this guideline require learnability? The answer is that learnability saves a lot of time and money:
- A company will profit from users that get sooner productive with a software application
- The easier and faster users learn a software application, the greater will be their motivation to use it – which in turn increases productivity
- Casual users will also profit from learnability – they never have a chance to become proficient with an application that they seldom use
Do not blame users if they cannot master your software. You as a developer or designer did something wrong, if users have problems with using your software.
How You Can Achieve Learnability
You can achieve learnability by applying the principles in this guide. Here, are just a few examples of how you can improve learnability:
- Consistency and conformity to user expectations Minimize the number of rules that users have to learn
- Simple applications which serve fewer purposes and thus have less functionality also require less learning effort
- Error robustness or applications where errors cannot occur relieve users from learning error recovery strategies
- Feedback about the success or failure of actions helps users to develop successful strategies for interacting with the application. Feedback about system states relieves users from having to remember these states, which in turn makes learning easier.
- Transparent and self-explanatory applications do not require users to remember details of how to use an application. Such applications are particularly suited to casual users.
See also Understanding, Learning and Relearning for more information and examples on this topic.
Source: Simplifying for Usability