Suitability for the Task (ISO 9241)
Why Suitability? | How You Can Achieve Suitability
Why Suitability?
"Why suitability?" may be the most stupid question is this whole guide. It is, however, alarming to see how many applications fail to meet this requirement – not ten or twenty years ago, but today. Although we have the most advanced interface technology ever at our disposal, many users are still dissatisfied with, or frustrated by the software they use.
So, the answer to the above question is very simple. People want to accomplish their tasks easily and efficiently with the software they use. The question of why things are how they are today is, however, much harder to answer and not within the scope of this guide. Here, we can only try to offer some ideas as to how you can design an application so that it better fits the task it has to perform. You will find these ideas below and throughout this guide.
How You Can Achieve Suitability
Again, we strongly recommend you use the methods found in the "Design Process" section of the Design Guild or similar methods for task and user analysis as found in the usability literature.
Key elements of such an analysis are:
- A good understanding of the task domain, the current work practice, the task itself and its embedding into the organizational and communication structure of a company. Site visits are a good approach to observing the current work practice and envisioning improvements
- Knowledge about the prospective users, their abilities, needs, and goals
- A look at the market and the competition. The marketing department should assists the development groups in gathering and consolidating this information
- Creating prototypical users (like Alan Coopers "personas") and scenarios. Scenarios are realistic usage situations that demonstrate how typical tasks are accomplished with the software.
- Reusing the scenarios in user days: Scenarios can be used for first demonstrations of the concepts, for "quick and dirty" tests with prototypes, as well as for final tests of the implemented application – be it in the lab or in the field. In addition, scenarios can be reused for reviews, where usability experts have a close look at the application.
Source: Simplifying for Usability