Article
Article
Product usability
Article By:
Eberts, Ray School of Industrial Engineering, Purdue University, West Lafayette, Indiana.
Last reviewed:January 2020
DOI:https://doi.org/10.1036/1097-8542.757603
A concept in product design, sometimes referred to as ease of use or user-friendliness, that is related directly to the quality of the product and indirectly to the productivity of the work force. Customer surveys show that product quality is broken down into six components (in descending order of importance): reliability, durability, ease of maintenance, usability, trusted or brand name, and price. Ease of maintenance and usability both relate to product usability. Reliability also has a component of usability to it. If a product is too difficult to use and thus appears not to work properly, the customer may think that it has malfunctioned. Consequently, the customer may return the product to the store not because it is unreliable but because it does not work the way the customer thinks it should.
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