Usability Engineering at NACSE
Usability In Action
Our Usability Engineering Laboratory provides a unique facility for testing the usability of software tools, web interfaces, and databases.
For guidelines that you can apply in your own webpage development, see the Web Usability Guide we developed for the Network for Earthquake Engineering Simulation (NEES) program.
Difficulties in learning and using software cost the nation billions of dollars per year. These losses stem from software maintenance costs, but more importantly from the loss of user productivity and the potentially catastrophic results of error.
Usability engineering - as the name implies - is the practice of structuring complex systems to improve both usability and safety. At NACSE, we apply usability engineering techniques to large, collaborative computing and data systems. NACSE's usability specialits work with companies, government agencies, and research groups worldwide to:
- identify and prioritize user requirements
- develop user interfaces that are easy to learn and "error resistant"
- methodically test the usability of software and data systems
NACSE has been called "the world leader in usability engineering for scientists and engineers" and is often cited by newspaper and journal articles about the importance of software usability.