At the Census Bureau we are starting a program to address usability issues for some of our computer applications such as electronic questionnaires and Internet web sites. This paper addresses the issues pertaining to the start-up of usability research and testing capability at the Census Bureau.

By way of introduction we discuss what we mean by usability, the kinds of products and activities that it can apply to in survey organizations, and how one might evaluate whether usability research, design and testing are worthwhile. Next we focus on the kinds of usability methods to apply at various stages in the development cycle and issues we have encountered when dealing with clients. In the last section we mention some features of the emerging Census Bureau usability capability and areas in which we are currently conducting usability research.