Usability
refers to the ease with which people can carry out a task in order to
achieve a particular goal, for example buying a DVD online or booking a
plane ticket. Usability can also refer to the perceived efficiency,
elegance and clarity of the interaction you have with a website and how
well it is designed. Websites like Amazon have pretty much cracked
usability, it is simple to use and you come away feeling that you have
done what you set out to do without any stress. Steve
Krug sums up
usability pretty well with the title of his book "Don't make me
think!".
Usability
doesn’t just apply to website design, it applies in
everyday life, how we interact with everyday objects such as a door
(ever pushed instead of pulled?) or a cooker hob (you turned the
wrong hot plate on, right?). Read more on this in a book by Donald
Norman –The
Design of Everyday Things