Quiz 6 - Heuristic Evaluation 1

What are the time ranges for providing system feedback?

0.1 sec: no feedback required 1 sec: user tends to lose track of data 10 sec: max duration if user is supposed to stay focused on the action longer delays: use percent-done progress bars

General attributes of heuristic evaluation

1) 3-5 inspectors who may be engineers, experts, or end users 2) Each person inspects the interface in isolation for 1-2 hours 3) Results are aggregated afterwards a) a single evaluator catches ~31% of problems b) 5 evaluators catch ~85%

What is the "match between system and real-world" heuristic?

1) System should speak like the user, with words, phrases, and concepts familiar to the user, rather than system-oriented terms 2) Real-world conventions should be followed: information should appear in natural and logical order based on the user's expectations 3) remove modes

What are design heuristics?

1) broad usability statements that can guide a developer's design efforts 2) they are derived from common design problems across multiple systems 3) different researchers have developed different heuristics, and some are domain-specific

What does it mean that one disadvantage of heuristic evaluation is that "principles are general"?

1) it's not a simple checklist 2) there are subtleties involved in use 3) can't help if you have the wrong design altogether

What is the "user control and freedom" heuristic?

1) users should be provided with clearly marked "emergency exits" to leave unwanted states a) e.g. long actions should be cancel-able b) all dialog boxes should have a "cancel" button 2) support "undo" and "redo"

Definition of heuristic

A rule of thumb: a principle that is a shortcut for solving a problem or making decisions. It's not always right, but it's a useful cognitive shortcut.

Advantages & disadvantages of heuristic evaluation

Advantages: 1) the approach is minimalist 2) it's discount usability engineering Disadvantages: 1) principles are general

What is the "visibility of system status" heuristic?

It says that users should be kept informed about what's going on. Feedback should be: a) appropriate b) timely

Formal definition of heuristic evaluation

Systematic inspection of an interface design to see if it complies with a set of usability heuristics, or usability guidelines

What does it mean that one advantage of heuristic evaluation is that it's a "minimalist approach"?

a) a few guidelines identify many common usability problems b) it's easy to remember and apply

What does it mean that one advantage of heuristic evaluation is that it's "discount usability engineering"?

a) end users are not required b) can be done by usability experts instead c) it's cheap and fast d) provides a common evaluation template (to evaluate across systems)