What is usability?  Use-a-ble  (yoo’ze-bul),  us’a-bil’i-ty, us’a-bly.  1: Capable of being used.  2: In a fit condition for use; intact and operative.

The usability of any system, whether it be software or a hardware design, is very important.  Specifically, if a software product isn't easily learned and used by its target audience, it will fail.  Some of the largest companies in the industry that design systems have integrated usability testing into their development processes, and by doing so, they have increased end user productivity, reduced training and support costs, and improved overall employee satisfaction.

Usability testing can involve a wide-variety of methods and instrumentation.  It usually implies relatively unobtrusive observation of task performance, often with video taping to capture the nuances of users' interactions with the product under evaluation.  Observational data is documented, preferably with time stamps that correspond to a video recorder in real-time.  Performance data may include the incidence of various usability problems, user habits and posture, user errors, or the time that it takes the user to respond to specific task-relevant event.

This is where Usability Activity Log comes into play.  It offers an effective means to easily and unobtrusively document observational data and task performance.  The ease of use and low cost of Usability Activity Log provides the best alternative to other activity logging products which are expensive and often overly complex.  In fact, Usability Activity Log has been usability tested first time user can sit down in front of our product and begin using it effortlessly with minimal instruction.

FINALLY, the features of the long awaited version v2.3 are here..

• Usability Activity Log is fully functional as a stand-alone package.  No additional add-on modules are required to get the full product functionality.
• Usability Activity Log operates in a networked environment allowing you to share activity logs with multiple workstations (a separate license is required for each workstation).
• All observational data is saved on the fly; requiring no user intervention.  There is no need to manually save, thus minimizing the risk of lost data.
• Observational data may be modified, marked, sorted or removed from the grid while you're working.
• You can assign your observational data categories to assist organization during focus groups.  System categories are provided or you may create your own.
• A word correct feature has been added assist you in correcting some of the most frequently misspelled words on the fly while you’re logging observational data.
• Usability Activity Log passively synchronizes all logging activity with video equipment.  The synchronization feature.
• An alarm system warns you that the tape timer is about to expire. You can set a primary and secondary warning.
• Observational data may now be exported to the following formats: Rich Text Format (RTF), Hypertext Markup Language (HTML), Adobe Portable Document Format (PDF), Microsoft Excel (XLS), and ascii text.

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