Usability

• Interface IQ is Northern Ireland's independent specialist usability, accessibility and information architecture consultancy. Based in Northern Ireland, we service both Northern and Southern Ireland as well as mainland UK

• We work across multiple platform interfaces including PDAs, mobile, wireless, Internet, Intranet and traditional desktop applications.

Standard ISO 9241 states that:

“[usability is] The effectiveness, efficiency and satisfaction with which specified users can achieve specified goals in a particular environment.”

Interfaces are now a vital part of computing due to the explosion in personal computing and the ubiquity of The Internet. Governments want us to be able to vote online, fill in our tax returns, and update our details etc, while schools are educating our children from primary school age in computer based research techniques and usage. The uptake of computers has been facilitated by better, more usable interfaces. These advances all come as part of research into Human Computer Interaction, or Usability to you and me.

Usability Engineering takes account of the needs of the business, technology and primarily the users. It focuses on the users’ goals, the environment in which the tasks take place and the psychological make-up of the users.

The interface is designed around the users to ensure it is ‘fit for purpose’, that is, that it is acceptable to the users in terms of:

1. Effectiveness
2. Efficiency
3. Learnability
4. Memorability
5. Recoverability (error correction)
6. Consistency
7. Subjective satisfaction/aesthetic appeal.

Interface IQ’s usability services can assist in specifying, designing, prototyping and testing for usability. The services can be used to help plan new websites, test old ones, benchmark the usability of your services against your competitors, and create usable prototypes for user acceptance testing and focus groups.

Why not checkout our range of usability services: Evaluations, Audits, Competitive Analysis and Consultancy.

• Understand what your customers want from your services
• Understand how your customers currently use your services
• Attract new customers and retain existing ones
• Determine how your services are being received compared to your competitors’
• Improve your ROI
• Improve the quality of your services and products
• Increase customer satisfaction
• Raise your business profile.

Interface IQ provides 4 key usability services:

1. Evaluations - testing your products/services with your target users
2. Audits - using heuristics and experts reviews to test your site against key usability criteria
3. Competitive Analysis — Benchmark your websites, products and/or services against your competitors’. The benchmarking can take the form of audits, evaluations or combinations of both. They can include regular and disable users. They can be tailor made to produce the optimal information to improve your products/services for your users
4. Consultancy - We can help you plan, execute and monitor the inclusion of Usability into your organisation.