Costs and Benefits of Automated Usability Testing

Usability testing is imperative because users are getting more critical about their needs of software as they are given more choice in the field. The variety of usability evaluation methods made available help designers and developers decide which is appropriate for their product or service at the stage of development they are at. The availability of such manual methods is not enough as these are timeconsuming and limiting in some aspects. The availability of automated usability evaluation methods has the potential to greatly improve the usability of products and services. This report discusses benefits and costs of automated usability testing, as well as the shortcomings of current research in this field. It has been found that automated usability testing works satisfactorily when the information required is objective and where it is possible to define some form of metric for the results. Automated usability test tools make it possible for empirical testing to take place, in a remote testing context, and much benefit comes from research in this field. There is currently no automation support in the testing of subjective data, thus is a major shortcoming of the current research. It is found that a balance between automated and manual evaluations will result in more usable systems.