Laboratory

Heuristic Evaluation of Website

Objectives
 From this experiment, the student will be able to:
 To stress the importance of a good interface design
 To understand the importance of human psychology in designing good
interfaces.
 To motivate students to apply Human Machine Interaction in their day – to
– day activities.
Outcomes
 The learner will be able,
 To understand and apply principles of a good interface design.
 To analyze the local and global impact of computing on individuals,
organizations, and society.
Contents
 Heuristic Evaluations and Expert Reviews
 Advantages and Disadvantages of Heuristics
 10 Usability heuristics
Heuristic Evaluations and Expert Reviews
Heuristic evaluation is a process where experts use rules of thumb to
measure the usability of user interfaces in independent walkthroughs
and report issues.
Evaluators use established heuristics (e.g., Nielsen-Molich's) and
reveal insights that can help design teams enhance product usability
from early in development..
In a heuristic evaluation, usability experts review your site’s interface
and compare it against accepted usability principles.
The analysis results in a list of potential usability issues.
Advantages and Disadvantages of Heuristics
A heuristic evaluation should not replace usability testing.
Although the heuristics relate to criteria that affect your site’s usability, the
issues identified in a heuristic evaluation are different than those found in a
usability test.
Heuristic evaluation and usability testing are two different techniques for
finding usability problems.
With heuristic evaluation, someone looks at the user interface and
identifies the problems.
With usability testing, potential users try out the user interface with real
tasks. ... This corresponds to usability testing.
Advantages of Heuristics
It can provide some quick and relatively inexpensive feedback to
designers.
You can obtain feedback early in the design process.
Assigning the correct heuristic can help suggest the best corrective
measures to designers.
You can use it together with other usability testing methodologies.
You can conduct usability testing to further examine potential issues.
Disadvantages of Heuristics
It requires knowledge and experience to apply the heuristics
effectively.
Trained usability experts are sometimes hard to find and can be
expensive.
You should use multiple experts and aggregate their results.
The evaluation may identify more minor issues and fewer major
issues.
10 Usability heuristics
Though many groups have developed heuristics, one of the best-
known sources is the set developed by Nielsen’s in 1994.
Nielsen refined the list originally developed in 1990 by himself and
Rolf Molich.
Nielsen’s Heuristics include:
 01. Visibility of system status
 02. Match between system and the real world
 03. User control and freedom
10 Usability heuristics …
 04. Consistency and standards
 05. Error prevention
 06. Recognition rather than recall
 07. Flexibility and efficiency of use
 08. Aesthetic and minimalist design
 09. Help users recognize, diagnose, and recover from errors
 10. Help and documentation
01. Visibility of system status
The system should always keep users informed about what is going
on, through appropriate feedback within reasonable time.
When you do some action or referring to a continuing process, the
status should be clearly mentioned until it’s completion.
Let’s look in some examples.
01. Visibility of system status …
When you login to Gmail, it shows you what’s happening in the
background and the progress.
01. Visibility of system status …
When you upload something, the progress should be clearly visible
unless you don’t know what happens in the background and gets
confused.
When you check flight details on google, it clearly shows you the
status in an appealing way.
Colour represents that it’s on time and the location of the icon
indicates the progress of the journey.
01. Visibility of system status …
01. Visibility of system status …
02. Match between system and the real world

The system should speak the users’ language, with words, phrases
and concepts familiar to the user, rather than system-oriented terms.
Follow real-world conventions, making information appear in a
natural and logical order.
Basically, it’s making the designs, interactions labelling and
conversations more familiar to the real world.
Image in the next slide is a representation of iBooks application using
the appearance of a wooden bookshelf.
02. Match between system and the real world …
02. Match between system and the real world …

Recycle bin icon is similar to a real bin, and the icon itself shows
weather it has files in it or not.
03. User control and freedom
Users often choose system functions by mistake and will need a
clearly marked “emergency exit” to leave the unwanted state without
having to go through an extended dialogue.
Support undo and redo.
When you trigger an action accidentally, and you want to get out of
there without going through any of the details, the small cross is there
to rescue you.
03. User control and freedom …
If you attached a large file in Gmail by mistakenly, you can cancel it
before its fully uploaded.
04. Consistency and standards
Users should not have to wonder whether different words, situations,
or actions mean the same thing.
Follow platform conventions.
You will always find sign-in, profile details and shopping cart
information at the top right corner.
04. Consistency and standards …
Microsoft Word, Excel, and PowerPoint all use the same style toolbar
with the same primary menu options: Home, Insert, Page Layout…
Consistency results in efficiency and perceived intuitiveness.
05. Error prevention
Even better than good error messages is a careful design which
prevents a problem from occurring in the first place.
Either eliminate error-prone conditions or check for them and
present users with a confirmation option before they commit to the
action.
When you try to send an attachment through Gmail and forgets to
attach it, Gmail smartly detects that you haven’t attached the file and
warn you before you send the mail.
05. Error prevention …
05. Error prevention …
When you choose password tips are provided to prevent errors and
password strength is calculated and displayed as you type.
06. Recognition rather than recall
Minimize the user’s memory load by making objects, actions, and
options visible.
The user should not have to remember information from one part of
the dialogue to another.
Instructions for use of the system should be visible or easily
retrievable whenever appropriate.
06. Recognition rather than recall …
When you google, it gives you list suggestions as you type in based on
your previous searches and related most searches. It also lists your
matching bookmarks as well.
07. Flexibility and efficiency of use
Accelerators — unseen by the novice user — may often speed up the
interaction for the expert user such that the system can cater to both
inexperienced and experienced users.
Allow users to tailor frequent actions.
While a novice user uses the default google image search, the expert
user always can refine the search by size, colour, type, and so on.
07. Flexibility and efficiency of use …
08. Aesthetic and minimalist design
Dialogues should not contain information which is irrelevant or rarely
needed.
Every extra unit of information in a dialogue competes with the
relevant units of information and diminishes their relative visibility.
Google search and account login is an excellent example of minimalist
design, and it has only the required information to perform the
primary task.
In contrast, in yahoo, it is cluttered with so many irrelevant details.
08. Aesthetic and minimalist design …
09. Help users recognize, diagnose, and
recover from errors
Error messages should be expressed in plain language (no codes),
precisely indicate the problem, and constructively suggest a solution.
When there is an error you should not panic user, you need to help
them recover by suggesting a solution.
This error message assures you are safe and suggest some alternative
links.
This funny error message keeps the audience engaged, while relevant
links keep you on your website.
09. Help users recognize, diagnose, and
recover from errors …
09. Help users recognize, diagnose, and
recover from errors …
10. Help and documentation
Even though it is better if the system can be used without
documentation, it may be necessary to provide help and
documentation.
Any such information should be easy to search, focused on the user’s
task, list concrete steps to be carried out, and not be too large.
You can provide any extra information that would be useful to users,
along with the label.
But you should do so only if it is necessary.
10. Help and documentation …
10. Help and documentation …