Assessing Usability Attributes and Metrics: Causes and Causalities in SCADA Systems for the Forestry Industry

As operations and systems become more complex, usability and user experience become increasingly critical. Organizations invest significant resources to enhance usability, yet identifying context-dependent root causes remains challenging. This paper describes a usability study conducted by a Finnish forestry company on a Supervisory Control And Data Acquisition (SCADA) control system. The study utilized academic research to identify key usability attributes and metrics, which formed the basis of a comprehensive usability questionnaire. Analysis of survey responses underscores the importance of situational analysis and identifying cumulative and causal influences on end-user perceptions of usability.