System Usability Scale template

Use this template to gather objective and subjective feedback about an experience, product, or design.

The System Usability Scale (SUS) is a free tool designed by John Brooke for Digital Equipment Corporation. It uses the Likert Scale, which asks people to rate each question on a five-point scale from "Strongly Disagree" to "Strongly Agree."

The way people feel when using a product is just as important as how they use it. The SUS allows you to gauge how well a design is performing, as well as make comparisons between designs. This tool is incredibly useful for making sure that the design of a product is user-friendly and efficient.

The system usability scale template helps you:

• Clearly define the goals for your research
• Identify any key tasks associated with your research
• Define what the subjects will be reviewing
• Gather objective and subjective feedback from all participants
• Organize and analyze your feedback according to themes, all in a single place

How to use the system usability scale template

To run a successful research project using the SUS template, follow the below steps.

Step 1: Define the goal of your research

The first task is to clearly outline what it is you are going to be researching and why. Enter your goals into the first section of the template before moving on to Step 2.

Step 2: Brainstorm and identify any key tasks associated with your research

Have your team brainstorm any tasks that you’ll need to take into account while conducting your research project, and place them into the second section of the template.

Step 3: Add the subject of the review

What experience or design will your users be testing? Add images, sticky notes, text, links, video content, or even GIFs into this section to illustrate the subject of the test.

Step 4: Outline any talking to give context to your users

Use the included framework as a basis to include a series of talking points to help orient your testers, and introduce the central topic.

Step 5: Have each tester complete the experience, then administer the SUS questionnaire

Once each tester has completed their experience, have them fill out their SUS questionnaire based on the Likert Scale. Hint: Duplicate this section of the template for each tester so everyone has a clean form to fill out.

Step 6: Score the scale to calculate the results

When each tester has filled out their SUS questionnaire based on the Likert Scale, it’s time to tally up the scores and define your overall average.

To calculate the SUS score, the user response for each odd-numbered item is subtracted by 1. For even-numbered items, the user response is subtracted from 5. This will give all the numbers a range of 0 to 4, with 4 being the best response. Finally, the new answers are added up and multiplied by 2.5. If the total score is over 68, it is considered good.

Step 7: Review and synthesize results

Finally, it’s important to reflect on the results and look for any themes — a good framework for this is the typical Rose, Thorn, Bud approach, with what appears to be working as the rose, what’s not working as the thorn, and any ideas based on the feedback serving as the buds.

Tips for running a system usability scale template workshop

To run a successful SUS workshop and gather meaningful research, you should:

• Make sure that your goals are well defined from the outset and that each tester has a solid understanding of the context before engaging with the experience and submitting their feedback
• Use tools like color-coding and find & filter to organize feedback visually, group similar content by theme, and create actionable next steps
• Share your results with all your key stakeholders using Mural’s safe and secure sharing options