- Visibility of system status
- Match between system & real world
- User Control & Freedom
- Consistency & Standards
- Error Prevention
- Recognition instead of Recall
- Flexibility & efficiency of use
- Aesthetic & minimalist design
- Help user recognize, Diagnose, and recover from errors
- Help & documentation
Heuristic Evaluation Technique
- Select system or set of screens to evaluate
- Step through the user journey and apply heuristics to potential problems
- Be sure to test error case
- Be sure to test help system
- Write down all violations big or small
- Which heuristic they violate
- Asses the severity of each violation
- Cosmetic problem: no real user experience impact
- Minor usability issue: Fix if there's time
- Major usability issue: Important to fix
- Usability Catastrophe: must be fixed
- Create prioritized list of violations
- Highlight top 5 to 10 violations
- Rank in descending order of severity
- Use heuristics to explain importance
Describing a heuristic Violation
Description: Drop down list is not identified as such be inspection
Severity 2/4: Minor issue
Heuristic Violated: Recognition instead of Recall
Summary: the user should be able to identify that the "All Tasks" filter is a drop down with out having to remember to click on it.
Screenshot
Recommendation: Add a downward arrow to the right of the selected value indicating that it's a drop down menu.
having 3 to 5 experts evaluate a system individually then pool their findings is one of the most effective ways to identify a large share of violations
| Heuristic Evaluation | User Testing |
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It's normal to use multiple techniques in an iterative process to flush out all usability issues from your system
Summary
- Heuristic evaluation is a quick and cheap way to identify significant flaws in a user interface
- leverages Nielsen's heuristics
- Inspect each screen, potential errors, and help options
- capture and asses violations
- prioritize
