Leveraging Your Expertise by Means of Heuristics

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Leveraging Your Expertise by Means of Heuristics

• David K. Farkas
• TC 510
• Fall Quarter 04

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What Is a Heuristic?

• Heuristics are procedures or principles that
  help their users work systematically toward a
  discovery, a decision, or a solution.
  -- van der Geest and Spyridakis (2000)
• A heuristic encapsulates knowledge and offers
  guidance. -- Farkas and Farkas (2004)
• A heuristic is a guideline or a principle. It is
  any observation that can be operationalized.
  -- Simple working definition for TC 510

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Singular vs. Plural

• The term heuristic is often used to refer to
  individual items. But it is often used to refer
  to a set of items. In TC 510 a heuristic will be
  an individual item.

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Variables Among Heuristics1

• General or specific flat or hierarchical.
• Carefully orient the user within your website.
• Make sure each page has a page title and either
  the name of the website or a logo.
• Absolute or qualified
• Avoid horizontal scrolling on the Web.
• Favor placing a logo at the upper left of each
  page.
• Open ended or closed ended
• Have you placed a logo at the upper left of each
  page?

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Variables Among Heuristics2

• Formative or summative
• Did you carefully orient the user on each page?
• Can it be directly operationalized?
• Old media die slowly,
• You can work in an older media with confidence
  that it will not be very rendered obsolete.

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The Same Heuristic May Be Phrased in Multiple
Ways

• Avoid long scrolling Web pages.
• Be cautious about creating long scrolling Web
  pages.
• Web pages should not scroll excessively.
• Long scrolling pages are generally bad design.
  Users may only look at the content above the
  fold.

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The Form of TC 510 Heuristics

• Short title
• Length of Links
• Statement
• links should be long enough to make the
  destination of the
• link fully clear.
• Explanation
• Designers should resist the temptation to overly
  shorten link
• text to fit physical space. They should also be
  cautious about
• shortening links to make them more inviting.
  Users resent
• links that are vague oreven worsemisleading.

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Sample Heuristics Nielsen

• Jakob Nielsen. Ten Usability Heuristics
  Available at http//www.useit.com/papers/heuristi
  c/heuristic_list.html
• Link

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Sample Heurstics NCI
http//usability.gov/pdfs/chapter7.pdf Link
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Sample Heuristics NCI
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Sample Heuristics NCI
http//usability.gov/pdfs/chapter1.pdf Link
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NCI Guidelines
http//usability.gov/pdfs/chapter7.pdf Link
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IBM Ease of Use Guidelines
http//www-306.ibm.com/ibm/easy/eou_ext.nsf/publis
h/561 Link
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Sample Heuristics Oracle
Guidelines/Specifications
http//otn.oracle.com/tech/blaf/specs/htmlFrameOpt
ions.html Link
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Sample HeuristicsOracle Guidelines/Specificatio
ns
http//otn.oracle.com/tech/blaf/specs/anchor.html
Link
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Pattern Language Heuristics

• Patterns are elaborate heuristics that consist
  of distinct sections. They describe a situation
  and problem and offer a guideline as a solution.
• Pattern languages and patterns have become
  prevalent in the world of UI design.

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A Sample Pattern (Marcus)Paging Controls

• Context A list may contain too many items to fit
  on one page. An example the results of a search.
• Problem Users need a way to browse through a
  long list of items.
• Forces The number of items that can be returned
  may be limited by system performance. Users need
  to directly access positions within the list.
• Solution Group items into pages. Provide paging
  controls above and below the list. Rationale
  Dividing a list into shorter, manageable pages
  makes it easier to view and navigate the
  constraints. Users are given ways to navigate the
  list easily.

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The Support for a Heuristic

• A heuristic should rest on some supporting
  evidence, especially if its a published
  heuristic.
• The support may consist of relevant research,
  expert opinion, practitioner experience, etc.
  Ideally, heuristics would be anchored in highly
  relevant empirical research.
• TC 510 heuristics are provisional and we can be
  somewhat casual about support. At the same time,
  we should consider what kinds of support might be
  developed for our heuristics.

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References

• Menno de Jong and Thea van der Geest. 2000.
  Characterizing Web Heuristics, Technical
  Communication, 47(3), 311-326.
• van der Geest and Spyridakis (2000)

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The End