Usability standards across the development lifecycle

Abstract

In 2005 the International Organization for Standardization published ISO/IEC 25062 "Common Industry Format (CIF) for Usability Test Reports." This standard focuses on documenting the results of usability testing in a consistent format in terms of user effectiveness, efficiency and satisfaction that allows comparison among products by purchasers of such systems. However, soon after its publication the user community advocated for additional standards to document the output of usability-related work within the development lifecycle. A second usability CIF, "A General Framework for Usability-related Information" (ISO/IEC Technical Report 25060) is now available that identifies seven outputs of the usability-engineering process. The framework focuses on documenting those elements needed for design and development of usable systems. To successfully use the framework it is critical to understand the relationship of these elements to the human-centered design process and the activities of the system life-cycle processes. These new Common Industry Format standards for usability-related information are a further step in standardizing usability engineering in industry. © 2011 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg.