Usability Ratings for Everyday Products Measured With the System Usability Scale

TLDR

The study characterizes the usability of 14 common everyday products using the System Usability Scale. Over 1,000 users completed an online survey that applied two novel SUS approaches: rating overall integrated experience without task performance and evaluating products at the class level rather than specific models. The results reveal clear usability distinctions among products, offering benchmarks for practitioners and researchers.

Abstract

This article characterizes the usability of 14 common, everyday products using the System Usability Scale (SUS). More than 1,000 users were queried about the usability of these products using an online survey methodology. The study employed two novel applications of the SUS. First, participants were not asked to perform specific tasks on these products before rating their usability but were rather asked to assess usability based on their overall integrated experience with a given product. Second, some of the evaluated products were assessed as a class of products (e.g., “microwaves”) rather than a specific make and model, as is typically done. The results show clear distinctions among different products and will provide practitioners and researchers with important known benchmarks as they seek to characterize and describe results from their own usability studies.