What is learnability in HCI?

Before discussing learnability, lets first define usability as learnability is one of its characteristics.

Usability

Usability is a quality characteristic that rates how simple user interfaces are to operate. Methods for enhancing usability during the design phase are frequently called usability. Usability is defined by five quality components, listed as follows:

• Learnability
• Efficiency
• Memorability
• Errors
• Satisfaction

Now, let’s talk about learnability.

Learnability

Learnability refers to how simple it is for users to complete fundamental activities when they first come across the design. The ease with which a software application or other product can be used and understood by users is known as learnability. The greater an application’s learnability, the less training and time are required to use it.

Why learnability is important

Because usability and learnability are intertwined, learnability is essential. Users must be able to learn how to utilize an application fast. This is particularly crucial if we are developing software for business purposes because companies are less willing to invest in software that requires expensive employee training.

How to improve learnability

We can improve learnability by developing straightforward user interface designs with predictable navigation and structure. Knowing what our users expect before they use the application is an excellent method to increase learnability. We can also use feedback to improve an application’s learnability, enhancing its prospects of market success.

Principles of learnability

The principles of learnability assist inexperienced users in understanding an interactive system and later achieving the highest degree of performance. There are five principles of learnability.

• Predictability
• Synthesizability
• Familiarity
• Generalizability
• Consistency

How can we measure learnability?

Usability is influenced by high learnability. Additionally, because users will believe in their talents, good learnability can produce high happiness levels. The time required to learn a new system is a measure of learnability.

To measure learnability, we should follow the following steps:

• Determine our metric: Time on task is the most typical statistic used in learnability research. This indicates that as a task is repeated more often, it takes less time.
• Determine the number of trials: This looks at how frequently we gather these measures. Each occasion of data collection is referred to as a trial.
• Gather and plot the data: Each trial will involve the same participants performing the same task(s) on each occasion. Calculate the metric averages for each trial for each task, then plot those results on a line graph with labeled axes.
• Analyze the curve: Less learnable interfaces contain very minimal decreases in the curve and require numerous repetitions to saturate. As an alternative, highly learnable systems have steep, quick-dropping curves that hit the saturation point after a smaller number of repetitions.