System Usability Scale Evaluation

A system usability scale (SUS) is a great tool for measuring the perceived usability of a product or experience. The scale consists of a ten-item questionnaire with five response options for test contributors—ranging from strongly agree to strongly disagree.

SUS scores fall on a scale of 0 to 100, with the average SUS score falling around 68. Scores above 68 are considered above average while those below 68 are considered below average.

UserTesting’s template solution calculates the SUS score as well as learnability, usability, adjective average, and net promoter scores based on contributor responses. Some of the benefits include being able to be easily administered to test participants, distinguish between easy-to-use or hard-to-use systems, and be used with multiple sample sizes.

With this template, you can measure the experience of using a product or design on a standard usability scale and compare experience scores over time—across industries or against competitors using a consistent scale.

Whether you’re following the Design Thinking Process or the Agile Process, evaluating the SUS should fall in the testing stage, following the prototype or develop stages. To prepare, first decide on the name of the product or feature you want to evaluate.