Heuristic Evaluation: An Example

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Heuristic EvaluationAn Example

• MIS 441 User Interface Design, Prototyping, and
  Evaluation
• March 28, 2000

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Agenda for Today

• Administrivia
• Begin working on your high-fidelity prototype
  ASAP (for Milestone 5)
• Review heuristic evaluation (HE)
• In class HE example / assignment
• Please remember course feedback / assessments --
  Thanks!!

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Review of Heuristic Evaluation

• What is it?
• Does it require the participation of real users?
• Does it require a person to observe and interpret
  the actions, behaviors, and words of the
  evaluator?
• Does it require that the evaluator actually
  perform and complete tasks or scenarios?

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...
Multiple evaluators independently produce a list
of usability problems (i.e., identify design
elements that violate one or more heuristics)
Evaluator 1
Evaluator 2
The findings are aggregated into a single list of
problems and the heuristics violated. At this
stage, redundancies are eliminated and
clarifications are made
Problem Heur Violated Description
...
The aggregated list is then sent back out to each
evaluator who then independently review the list
and assign a severity rating to each problem.
Apply severity ratings
Apply severity ratings
The lists are collected and a summary report is
created that includes the average severity rating
for each problem. The evaluators and design team
then go through a debriefing session , discuss
the problems, potential fixes, and add fix
ratings to the summary report
Summary Report
Final Report
UI Redesign / Next Prototype
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In-Class Assignment

• Take out a couple of pieces of paper
• put your name at the top
• Perform an initial heuristic evaluation
• You will have 20-25 minutes to independently
  evaluate the TRAVELweather interface
• Each person will come up with a list of usability
  problems with reference to the heuristic violated
  and an explanation
• We will then discuss the problems and generate an
  aggregated list of usability problems

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Next Class

• User testing
• continue reading through the assigned readings
  from Rubin
• you can skim through sections with which you are
  familiar (e.g., discussions about the user
  profile, task analysis, scenarios, etc.)