Construct · 3 names · 6 citations
Different names. Different fields. One construct. One map.
● jangle · measured ease vs believed ease Nearest construct by meaningperceived ease of usecompare the meaningsEvery construct on the map is compared with every other by the meaning of its definitions, and the closest one is surfaced here. The nearest construct to objective usability is perceived ease of use.
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Objective usability is a comparison of systems based on the actual, rather than perceived, level of effort required to complete specific tasks. Venkatesh's 2000 model of the determinants of perceived ease of use divided its antecedents into anchors, the general beliefs a user holds before touching the system (computer self-efficacy, perceptions of external control, computer anxiety, and playfulness), and adjustments, which form only through hands-on experience. Objective usability is one of those adjustments, alongside perceived enjoyment: it has little bearing on the ease-of-use belief at first contact and grows more influential as the user accumulates direct experience of the effort the tasks actually demand. Venkatesh and Bala's 2008 Technology Acceptance Model 3 carried the construct forward unchanged, keeping objective usability as an experience-moderated adjustment to perceived ease of use. What differs from the belief it feeds is that this is the measured effort itself, benchmarked against an expert, not the user's report of how effortful the system feels.[1][2]
The usability-engineering tradition treats usability as an objective, measured property of a system in use rather than a belief about it. ISO 9241-11 defines usability as the effectiveness, efficiency, and satisfaction with which specified users achieve specified goals in a specified context, of which effectiveness and efficiency are observed and counted. Nielsen's 1993 Usability engineering decomposed it into learnability, efficiency, memorability, errors, and satisfaction, and made time on task, error counts, and completion rates the currency of a usability test. Objective usability in the acceptance literature is the same idea narrowed to effort: the actual work a task demands, measured and benchmarked, not the user's impression of it. Hornbæk's 2006 review of 180 studies found these measured components reported inconsistently and often at odds with satisfaction ratings taken in the same study, which is exactly the gap between measured effort and believed ease. What differs from perceived ease of use is that usability here is observed, and belongs to the product in its context, not to the user's belief.[3][4][5]
User-experience research draws a line between the pragmatic quality of a system, its instrumental fitness for tasks, which is close to usability, and its hedonic quality, what it evokes beyond getting the job done. Hassenzahl and Tractinsky's 2006 User experience: a research agenda set out this distinction and argued that experience is broader than usability, spanning emotion, affect, and the non-instrumental. Objective usability sits firmly on the pragmatic side and at its most measurable end: the actual effort a task takes. It marks one boundary of user experience, the point where felt ease gives way to counted effort, and it is the pragmatic residue left when the hedonic and the merely perceived are set aside. What differs from perceived ease of use is that the belief is a subjective judgement UX research groups with the perceived qualities, while objective usability is the behavioural, instrumental measure those judgements are supposed to track.[6]
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