There are generally three methods of usability evaluation: testing, inspection, and inquiry

Usability Evaluation Methods

Usability evaluation is important as it identifies user satisfaction scale, and changes to improve user performance and enjoyment can be identified. By gathering enough data, changes can be met to improve a website or an application. There are generally three methods of usability evaluation; testing, inspection and inquiry.

The usability testing method involves representative users who work on specific tasks in a system from where evaluators utilize the results to judge how the user interface supports the user in the performances of their tasks. The inspection approach requires usability specialists, software developers, professionals in other fields and sometimes users to examine the user interface. Methods commonly used for inspection include cognitive walkthroughs, heuristic evaluation, feature inspection and pluralistic walkthrough (Tuomi,2021).In inquiry, evaluators collect information on users' likes, dislikes, and needs by directly talking to them and asking questions or observing them as they use a system in real-time.

The three usability evaluation methods all produce desired results, but several factors like cost, efficiency and effectiveness have to be considered when choosing a desirable method. Testing is less expensive, and the results are almost the same as that of user experience. For the inquiry method, costs can be reduced if it is done before developing a prototype and is also more desirable since there is a direct user response. Of all the three, inspection would yield the greatest success for quickly achieving measurable results because specialists can solve usability issues faster. In inspection, many problems can be found and solved simultaneously and usually do not necessarily require the presence of a user response.