Heuristic Evaluations

Lightning talk on heuristic evaluations on 8/29 at exploreUX (Raleigh, NC).

Transcript

1. Heuristic Evaluations Andrew Wirtanen Lead Product Designer, Citrix @awirtanen
2. Have you conducted a heuristic evaluation or expert review in the past year?
3. 64% UX professionals conduct heuristic or expert reviews
4. Agenda ! What is a Heuristic Evaluation? ! How is it different from an Expert Review? ! How to conduct a Heuristic Evaluation ! Recommendations
5. What is a Heuristic Evaluation? Heuristic evaluation involves having a small set of evaluators examine the interface and judge its compliance with recognized usability principles (the "heuristics").
 
 https://www.nngroup.com/articles/how-to-conduct-a-heuristic-evaluation/
6. The Inventors
7. The Heuristics (1994) 1. Visibility Of System Status 2. Match Between System And The Real World 3. User Control And Freedom 4. Consistency And Standards 5. Error Prevention 6. Recognition Rather Than Recall 7. Flexibility And Efficiency Of Use 8. Aesthetic And Minimalist Design 9. Help users recognize, diagnose, and recover from errors 10.Help and documentation https://www.nngroup.com/articles/ten-usability-heuristics/
8. How Heuristic Evaluation are different from Expert Reviews “To conduct a Heuristic Evaluation, you need to put on blinders and view the world through the 10 heuristics. You reject anything that does not match the 10 heuristics.” - Rolf Molich
 
 https://measuringu.com/he-expert/
9. Other Sets of Heuristics ! Ben Shneiderman’s “Eight Golden Rules of Interface Design” ! Jill Gerhardt-Powals’ “10 Cognitive Engineering Principles” ! Connell & Hammond’s “30 Usability Principles” ! Christian Bastien and Dominique Scapin’s set of “18 Ergonomic criteria for the evaluation of human-computer interfaces” ! Bruce Tognazzini’s “First principles of interaction design” ! Lidwell, Holden, and Butler’s “Universal principles of design” ! Larry Constantine’s “Software for use” ! Alan Cooper’s “The essentials of interaction design” 
 http://uxmastery.com/how-to-run-an-heuristic-evaluation/
10. How to Conduct a Heuristic Evaluation 1. Planning 2. Executing 3. Reviewing http://usabilitygeek.com/heuristic-evaluation-introduction/
11. Step 1: Planning ! Determine goals and scope ! Find 3-5 evaluators ! Create a template ! Have a kickoff meeting
12. Heuristic Evaluation Template
13. Heuristic Evaluation Template
14. Severity Ratings ! Several different approaches ! Use what works best for you ! Consider Jeff Sauro’s scale: ◦ Minor ◦ Moderate ◦ Critical ◦ Insight/Suggestion/Positive https://measuringu.com/rating-severity/
15. Step 2: Executing ! Each evaluator should analyze the interface independently ! For each issue: ◦ Describe the problem ◦ Highlight relevant heuristic(s) ! Provide recommendations (if appropriate)
16. Example Issue
17. Step 3: Reviewing ! Meet to discuss issues discovered by all evaluators ! Determine how to address findings ◦ Fix right away? ◦ Submit a bug? ◦ Need user research? ! Create final report ! Present the final report
18. Report Tips ! Consider a presentation format ! Identify quick fixes! ! Group similar findings ! Don’t forget positive findings! ! Include screenshots
19. Recommendation: Beware The Evaluator Effect ! Hertzum and Jacobsen found different evaluators find different issues ! You need multiple evaluators with diverse experience http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1207/S15327590IJHC1501_14
20. Recommendation: Don’t Solely Rely on Heuristic Evaluations ! You will not find every issue ! Do user research and look at analytics ◦ Heuristic Evaluations will find only 30-50% of problems identified in a usability test https://measuringu.com/effective-he/
21. Summary ! A Heuristic Evaluation is when multiple evaluators review an interface against a set of heuristics ! Three steps to a Heuristic Evaluation: ◦ Planning ◦ Executing ◦ Reviewing ! Use other methods in addition to Heuristic Evaluations