Oct 10 - Usabilitynet, Usability Questionnaires

My comments: This is a good summary/intro of several Usability Questionnaires.

It has been observed that questionnaires are the most frequently used tools for usability evaluation. This page is a list of usability questionnaire resources, extending the information presented on the questionnaires page of Usabilitynet.

SUMI
This is a mature questionnaire whose standardisation base and manual have been regularly updated. It is good for desktop products, but has also been used to evaluate command-and-control applications. It is a commercial product which comes complete with scoring and report generation software. It is designed and sold by the Human Factors Research Group at University College Cork.

WAMMI
This is a new questionnaire, designed to evaluate the quality of use of web sites. It is backed up by an extensive standardisation database, and it is purchased on a per report basis. It is the result of a joint development project by Jurek Kirakowski and Nigel Claridge.

SUS
This is a mature questionnaire, developed by John Brooke in 1986 and not published until years later. It is very robust and has been extensively used and adapted. It is public domain and nobody has published any standardisation data about it. Of all the public domain questionnaires, this is the most strongly recommended.

QUIS
This is a questionnaire developed by Kent Norman that has been modified many times to keep it current since its first appearance. It is commercially available and is championed by Ben Shneiderman in his book Designing the User Interface. Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley Publishing Co., 1998. Despite lack of standardisation and validation data, it has many adherents.

USE (see http://www.mindspring.com/~alund/USE/IntroductionToUse.html)
This questionnaire is still in development by Arnie Lund (last updated 11/11/98). It attempts to create a three-factor model of usability that can be applied to many situations. However, no reliability or validation data are presented. Public domain use is encouraged.

CSUQ
This is a well-designed questionnaire developed by Jim Lewis and it is public domain. It has excellent psychometric reliability properties but no standardisation base.

IsoNorm (in German only)
This questionnaire is designed to test the usability quality of software following the ISO 9241 part 10 principles. It is created by a team led by Jochim Puemper. Strong reliabilities are claimed for the sub-scales, although it appears there may be a strong inter-correlation between them as well. Downloads and an on-line version are available from the above URL, as well as articles about it (all in German.)

IsoMetrics
This questionnaire is produced by Guenter Gediga and his team. It is another attempt to produce a way of measuring ISO 9241 part 10, with reference to specific software features that may give rise to low usability data. It is therefore good both for summative and formative assessments. The questionnaire is well researched and detailed statistical information is given. Downloads of English and German versions are available. There is no standardisation base for it but it is public domain.


Questionnaire resources
Source: http://www.usabilitynet.org/tools/r_questionnaire.htm