Which property would you be assessing if you were trying to measure how easily a material can be deformed?

The property being assessed when measuring how easily a material can be deformed is ductility. Ductility refers to a material's ability to stretch or deform under tensile stress without breaking. It indicates how much a material can be deformed plastically before fracturing, which is crucial in processes like metal forming and fabrication.

Ductile materials can undergo significant deformations, making them suitable for various applications where shape change is required. In contrast, hardness measures a material's resistance to deformation, toughness refers to a material's ability to absorb energy and plastically deform without fracturing, and softness is a less specific term that doesn’t provide a quantified evaluation of how materials respond to deforming forces. Therefore, among these options, ductility is the most relevant characteristic for assessing material deformation.