Usability Tester/Engineer, Human Factors Engineer

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What they do: Usability engineers design and test software, websites, and other technology-based systems and services to optimize the ease and efficiency of users’ task performance. Engineers design prototypes, conduct usability tests using various empirical methods, and make recommendations to programmers about specific changes and new requirements. Typical activities for usability engineers may include:
  • Interviewing project team members about their product, usability concerns, design process
  • Driving user research activities such as gathering data for creating user personas, task lists and scenarios
  • Designing usability tests
  • Presenting results from usability tests and other user research to project teams
  • Summarizing results from usability tests into design guidelines or style guides
Skills: Valuable skills for usability engineers, especially those involved with usability testing, include proficiency with empirical research methods and quantitative and qualitative analysis. Usability engineers should also possess the requisite written and oral communications skills to convey abstract concepts to developers, designers, and other project team members. Many people enter usability engineering with a background in computer science, information science, or human-computer interaction, but coursework in cognitive and experimental psychology is also highly relevant to the field. Some, but not all, employers require that usability engineers be familiar with web languages such as HTML, CSS, Javascript, and XML.

Employment: The 2005 Usability Professionals’ Association Member and Salary Survey reported a median salary of $75,000 for its respondents. The median salary for those just starting a career in the field was $48,000. Respondents reported working for software corporations and other types of corporations, usability consulting firms, design firms, and non-profit, governmental/military, and educational institutions. Companies that employ usability engineers in-house include Yahoo!, Microsoft, Electronic Arts, and Travelocity.



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