Turn “Easy to Use” Into Things You Can Measure
Measurable Usability Questions
Companion to You Are Not the User · Updated 2026-09-29
Use this when someone says a workflow should be “easy to use” and you need to turn that into things you can measure. Worked in “Friction Matters in Proportion to How Often the Work Happens.”
Measurable Usability Questions for one workflow and one user role.
| Question | How we’ll measure it | Answer |
|---|---|---|
| Can the user complete the task? | ||
| How long does it take? | ||
| How often is it performed? | ||
| Where does the user hesitate? | ||
| Where do errors occur? | ||
| What does the user have to remember? | ||
| How often do users leave the application to finish? | ||
| How many interruptions occur? | ||
| What downstream work does it create? | ||
| What is its economic value? | ||
| What is its clinical value (or other consequence for the affected party)? | ||
| What happens when someone makes a mistake? | ||
| What share of users abandon the workflow? | ||
| Does performance improve with repetition? |
A row with no method in the middle column is a question the team is currently answering with opinion.