In the January issue, I described how ISO standards 9241-11 and 13407 could be used to create standards and strategies for usability in the product life cycle. Another ISO standard that is an integral part of the product life cycle is called ISO 9001. ISO 9001:1994, 'Model for Quality Assurance in Design, Development, Production, Installation and Serving', specifies (quality system) requirements for achieving customer satisfaction by preventing non-conformity at all stages from design through servicing. What then does it have to do with usability when the word is not even used in the text?

ISO 9001 has a lot to do with usability because improving usability of a product is essential to quality. It includes requirements for ensuring the compatibility and integrity of the design, the production process, installation, servicing, inspection and test procedures and the applicable documentation to ensure that a product conforms to defined user needs and/or requirements.

Achieving ISO 9001 certification requires the establishment and maintenance of documented procedures as a means of ensuring that a product conforms to specified requirements, and procedures conform to ‘best practice’ to ensure quality. But what happens when an organization does not have a usability program?

True quality of product design is a result of a usability process that includes measuring and improving usability. The process involves pre-design activity of user and task analysis, observing and interviewing users, building usability into design, prototyping with rapid iterative usability evaluations throughout the product life cycle, and easily document the processes necessary to satisfy ISO 9001.

If a company has a quality manual, part of it should be the company's process for measuring and improving usability. Any company that wants to be ISO 9001 compliant must have well documented processes, and usability should be part of those processes. Proponents say that first the processes must be documented before quality can be improved. However, if the proponents do not understand that improving quality also means improving usability, then true quality cannot be achieved.