Common industry format for usability test reports

In October of 1997, the U.S. National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) initiated an effort to increase the visibility of software usability. Participants from major software suppliers and customer organizations attended the first three workshops of the Industry USability Reporting (IUSR) project. They set the goals of the initiative:• Encourage software supplier and customer organizations to communicate more effectively about user needs and tasks,• Develop a common reporting format for sharing usability data with customer organizations, and• Conduct a Pilot Study to determine how well the usability reporting format works and to determine the value of using this format in software procurement.These consensus-building meetings identified the requirements for the common format and resulted in the Common Industry Format (CIF) for Usability Test Reports. The CIF is intended to promote incorporation of usability as part of the procurement decision-making process for interactive products.Usability professionals within supplier organizations can use the CIF to generate reports, and customer organizations can use the reports as a basis for corporate decision-making. The report itself is intended for two types of readers: (1) human factors or other usability professionals in customer organizations who are evaluating both the technical merit of usability tests and the usability of products, and (2) other technical professionals and managers who are using the test results to make business decisions. The first draft of the CIF, developed through this consensus of the IUSR industry participants, is now ready. Trial use of the CIF report format is being encouraged via the IUSR Pilot Study. The CIF, as well as details of the IUSR project and the Pilot Study, can be found at http:/www.nist.gov/iusr