A test has been adapted to assess the user-friendliness of the interface.
The study was published in the journal “Psychological Research.” Numerous scientific papers demonstrate that user-friendly interfaces attract more users, enhance trust, and can boost company revenues. One criterion for evaluating interfaces is usability, which refers to the product's ability to help users effectively achieve their goals while ensuring convenience. Usability should not be confused with user experience (UX), which describes the subjective feelings associated with interacting with an interface. Studying usability helps to better understand how people engage with digital technologies.
To assess the usability of products worldwide, the System Usability Scale (SUS) questionnaire is frequently utilized. Its reliability has been confirmed by numerous studies, and in Russia, this tool is widely used in commercial practice, albeit in a simple translation from English. However, to obtain accurate and practically applicable results, the questionnaire requires not just translation but also conceptual adaptation to the cultural and linguistic characteristics of the respondents.
The research team from the Scientific and Educational Laboratory of Cognitive Psychology of Digital Interface Users at the HSE University adapted the System Usability Scale methodology for Russian-speaking users. The researchers employed a methodology designed for cross-cultural adaptation of self-report questionnaires. Initially, two independent translators performed a parallel translation into Russian. Subsequently, native English speakers conducted a back-translation into Russian. All versions were thoroughly analyzed, adjusted, and validated through a final questionnaire tested on a small group of respondents.
The final version of the adapted questionnaire was tested on 657 users. To verify the test's reliability, Cronbach's alpha coefficient was used — a metric that helps understand how consistently the questionnaire items behave. This coefficient is frequently applied in social sciences to assess the reliability of similar tools. Results indicated that the adapted version of the SUS questionnaire functions well: its questions are coherent, and the structure is reliable and aligns with the original English version. As a result, the adapted questionnaire can confidently be used with Russian-speaking audiences.
The SUS questionnaire consists of 10 statements rated on a five-point scale from “Strongly Disagree” to “Strongly Agree.” The final score, calculated using a specific formula, ranges from 0 to 100. In 2015, one of the key studies analyzed the results of 500 papers focusing on the SUS questionnaire. From these, an average score of 68 was derived. Interfaces scoring above this are considered user-friendly, while those scoring below are deemed inconvenient.
“SUS stands out for its versatility. Unlike many other usability assessment questionnaires, it is effectively applied to a wide range of interfaces — from web and mobile applications to any other digital solutions, making it highly adaptable and useful in practice. We are already seeing a significant response to our work from both researchers and businesses. UX researchers from two major domestic companies have privately reached out to us for adaptation materials,” says one of the study's authors, junior researcher Ekaterina Kosova from the Scientific and Educational Laboratory of Cognitive Psychology of Digital Interface Users.