Heuristic evaluation is where experts use the established usability heuristics and self-designed heuristics to test the usability of user interfaces.
The 10 principles of interaction design put forward by Neilson are the foundation for a heuristic evaluation. The principles are as follows:
Visibility of system status - the users should be informed of what is going on in the system and the system’s state through appropriate feedback in the right amount of time.
Match between system and the real world - the design should use the language, concepts, and practices that the user is familiar with from their real life. The design should follow real-world conventions.
User control and freedom - allow users to undo an action if they make a mistake. Users should have the freedom to get out of undesirable situations.
Consistency and standards - follow real-world ad industry conventions and not use unfamiliar words or phrases.
Error prevention - design should remove error-prone conditions or ask the user for confirmation before they commit an action.
Recognition rather than recall - make elements, actions, and options visible to minimize the user’s memory load.
Flexibility and efficiency of use - the design should cater to experienced and inexperienced users. There should be shortcuts for expert users to speed up the interaction, while novice users should have the conventional methods available to them.
Aesthetic and minimalist design - no extra elements should be present. The design should not be bland but minimalistic.
Help users recognize, diagnose, and recover from errors - error messages should be displayed in simple language, not codes. Constructive and easy-to-follow solutions should be presented along with the error.
Help and documentation - documentation and a user guide should be provided to help the users if they face any issues.
Select the heuristics you want to test against. This can be a combination of Neilson/Norman heuristics and your own defined heuristics.
Get to know your users - the target group that you will keep in mind as you evaluate. User personas can help in this stage.
Select 3-5 evaluators who are the experts of the fields. It is important to have multiple evaluators to see the design from different angles and point out different issues.
Brief evaluators regarding what aspects they need to cover during evaluation.
First evaluation phase is generally 2 hours long. Evaluators freely use the website to acquaint themselves with it and identify specific elements they want to evaluate.
Second evaluation phase is characterized by evaluating the interface using the chosen heuristics and elements identified during the first phase. They evaluate individual elements in this phase and how well they integrate with the overall design.
The evaluators record problems they encounter during evaluation and critically analyze the interface.
Evaluators suggest improvements.
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