Inspections, Heuristics and Walkthroughs

• Usability testing
  • direct observation of users
• Basic experimental design

• Introduction
• Inspections
• Heuristic evaluation
• Cognitive walkthroughs Based on material from: Sharp, H., Preece, J. and Rogers, Y. (2019). Interaction Design Beyond Human-Computer Interaction. 5th Ed. Sussex: John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

• Describe the key concepts associated with inspection methods
• Explain how to do heuristic evaluation and walkthroughs

• Learn methods that are based on understanding users through knowledge codified in heuristics, or models that predict users’ performance
• Not requires users to be present during the evaluation
• Inspection methods - typically involved an expert role playing the users for whom the product is designed, and identifying any potential usability problems by using a set of guidelines

• A usability inspection method developed by Jacob Nielsen in the early 1990s
• Derived empirically from an analysis of 249 usability problems
• These heuristics have been revised for current technology by Nielsen and others for:
  • mobile devices
  • wearables
  • virtual worlds, etc

Visibility of system status

1.

Match between system and real world

2.

User control and freedom

3.

Consistency and standards

4.

Error prevention

5.

Recognition rather than recall

6.

Flexibility and efficiency of use

7.

Aesthetic and minimalist design

8.

Help users recognize, diagnose, recover from errors

9.

Help and documentation

10.

• Clarity
• Minimize unnecessary complexity & cognitive load
• Provide users with context
• Promote positive & pleasurable user experience

• Briefing session to tell experts what to do
• Evaluation period of 1-2 hours in which:
  • each expert works separately
  • take one pass to get a feel for the product
  • take a second pass to focus on specific features
• Debriefing session in which experts work together to prioritize problems

• Look at the Nielsen heuristics and consider how you would use them to evaluate a website

• Do the heuristics help you to focus on the website more intently than if you were not using them?
• If you did this activity using smartphone, were all the heuristics relevant & useful?

• Few ethical & practical issues to consider because users not involved
• Can be difficult & expensive to find experts
• Best experts have knowledge of application domain & users
• Biggest problems:
  • It requires knowledge & experience to apply heuristics
  • Sometimes hard to find trained usability experts & can be expensive
  • Should use multiple experts & aggregate their results

Ask questions like the following:

“Does the application include a visible title page, section or site? Does the user always know where they are located?

Does the user always know what the system or application is doing? Are the links clearly defined? Can all actions be visualized directly (i.e., no other actions are required)?”

Granollers, 2018, p. 62

• Inspections can be used to evaluate requirements, mockups, functional prototypes, or systems
• User testing & heuristic evaluation may reveal different usability problems
• Design guidelines can be used to develop heuristics
• Walkthroughs are focused so are suitable for evaluating small parts of a product
• A/B testing a form of large-scale experiment.