The use and usability of evaluation outputs: A social practice approach

Abstract

This article contributes to the discussion of evaluation use. It argues for a social practice approach to the analysis of evaluation use that enables a discerning and fine-grained understanding of how evaluations might be used by real people in real time. It suggests a distinction between two dimensions of the way an evaluation might be used. It offers an interpretation of ‘use’, which focuses on the context and the capacity of the organizational setting in which evaluation outputs are used; and ‘usability’, which emphasizes the extent to which the evaluation design itself militates against or encourages the use of its outputs in the broadest sense. The two dimensions are distinct yet closely interrelated. The article concludes with a consideration of various approaches and tools that highlight the dimensions of use and usability from a social practice perspective.