ITL coordinates NIST Industry Usability Reporting Workshop

The Information Access Division coordinated the 6^th NIST Industry Usability Reporting Project (IUSR) Workshop held October 18-19, 2004 at Fidelity Investments in Boston. This workshop focused on how to report the results of formative usability testing. The Common Industry Format (CIF) developed by the IUSR participants for usability test reporting of summative testing, has been an ANSI/INCITS Standard since late 2001. Organizations and usability practitioners began modifying the CIF for reporting testing aimed at improving a product during its design and development, suggesting an “unmet need” that IUSR project participants were interested in studying. This IUSR Workshop focused on meeting this need.

The workshop was well attended by representatives from industry, government and academia including participants from IBM, Oracle, Whirlpool, SAP and Fidelity Investments. Breakout groups worked on developing a common set of reporting elements, identifying the set of appropriate metrics, the rules and context for reporting findings and recommendations. In addition, four working groups were established to continue refining the respective elements. The goal of this work is to continue to raise the level of visibility of usability by promoting best practices and to assist the many practitioners for which most of the work is formative. A follow-up workshop is planned for June at the Usability Professionals Association Conference.

Contact: Mary Theofanos, ext. 5889