A way to quantify feedback about usability using surveys
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.
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
To run a successful research project using the SUS template, follow the below steps.
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.
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.
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.
Use the included framework as a basis to include a series of talking points to help orient your testers, and introduce the central topic.
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.
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.
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.
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
To get the System Usability Scale (SUS) score, take the user's response for every odd-numbered item and subtract 1. For every even-numbered item, subtract the response from 5. This will give all the answers a range from 0 to 4, with 4 being the best answer. Add up all the new responses and multiply by 2.5. If the total is over 68, it's considered good. This tool is very helpful for making sure a product is easy to use and efficient.
The System Usability Scale (SUS) measures the overall usability of a product or service. It uses the Likert Scale, which asks participants to rate each question on a five-point scale from "Strongly Disagree" to "Strongly Agree." This is a particularly effective way of benchmarking a given design against later iterations, and it is highly versatile across many product and service realms.
The SUS score offers valuable insights into the current performance of a design, product, or experience by gathering both objective and subjective feedback, enabling you to make more informed decisions.
Mural is the only platform that offers both a shared workspace and training on the LUMA System™, a practical way to collaborate that anyone can learn and apply.