Usability Evaluation Trends in Ibero-American Countries

Abstract

Usability evaluation is a major area of humancomputer interaction (HCI) in both academia and industry. According to Nielsen, on the Web, usability is a necessary condition for survival. If a website is difficult to use, people leave. If a homepage fails to clearly state what a company offers and what users can do on the site, people leave. If users get lost on a website, they leave. If a website’s information is hard to read or doesn’t answer users’ key questions, they leave. We conducted a survey in diverse Ibero-American countries of both academic institutions and software development companies to determine how usability evaluation is performed, taking into account methods, techniques, software tools, and usability laboratories.