As information technology pervades society, and more and more people are spending a significant proportion of their working life in front of a computer screen, the usability of computer systems becomes ever more important. Although this is recognized by experts in the field, many well-known software products still suffer from limited usability with associated steep learning curves and high training costs. For the future, as users become more critical, low usability may become a major barrier to the success of new commercial software applications.

This review describes how user acceptance of technological applications can be measured by a process called usability evaluation. This can be done most effectively in a usability labs which comprises of video and audio tools to record the interaction between a user and the system to be tested. One such tool, The Observer Video-Pro, has rapidly gained acceptance as a tool for usability research.