6.5.2 Appropriateness recognizability measures

What this heading covers

This family is about the first minute, not the first week. It covers the information a user sees before use: the description, the screenshots, the first screen, the help. The population is a group of intended users, not the product team. The measure can be collected cheaply with a short task: show the entry point and ask what the product is for and whether it fits. A high score here reduces support load and abandoned trials, which is why it belongs in a product quality report and not only in marketing.

Record position: family 9 of 40 in clause 6, under 6.5 Interaction capability, which carries 8 families. It is one of the 40 families a programme has to map its measures to, and its elements are listed below. The heading is 6.5.2 in the public contents; the text behind it is not public.

How a measure for this family is built

Take the number of users who correctly identified the product purpose and its fit as the numerator over the number asked. A stricter version times the judgement and counts only correct answers within the time. Record the users and the entry point, because a landing page and a first-run screen give different results.

What to put in place before publication

1. Name the entry point and keep it fixed for the study.
2. Ask a fit question, not only a purpose question.

Evidence to keep

Two questions to ask

• Which entry point was shown to the users, and was it the real first screen?
• Did you ask about fit, or only about purpose?

Where teams usually fall short

• The product team asked whether the product is clear, with no intended users involved.

What the number cannot tell you

It cannot tell you whether they would still choose it after use. Recognition is the first minute, not the decision.

What happens next

Learnability is the next question: recognition gets a user in, learning keeps them.