The System Usability Scale: Beyond Standard Usability Testing

The system usability scale (SUS; Brooke, 1996) is an instrument commonly utilized in usability testing of commercial products. The goal of this symposium is to discuss the validity of the SUS in usability tests and beyond. This article serves as an introduction to the symposium. Specifically, it provides an overview of the SUS and discusses research questions currently being pursued by the panelists. This current research includes: defining usability norms, assessing usability without performing tasks, and the use of SUS for ergonomics. In addition to this paper, there are four other papers in the symposium, which discuss the impact of experience on SUS data, the relationship between SUS and performance scores, the linkage between SUS and business metrics, as well as the potential for using SUS in test and evaluation for military systems.