Beyond Usability Methods: Usability Engineering Through Processes and Outcomes

by Timo Jokela

When we consider usability engineering, our first impulse is typically to think about usability methods. When planning usability actions, we debate whether to use personas, use cases, task analysis, usability testing, user scenarios, or paper prototyping. Or should we use a usability methodology that covers the different phases of development, such as Contextual Design [2] or the Usability Engineering Lifecycle [7]?