Heuristic Evaluation

Expert Review Methodology

The first phase of user interface evaluation in our project was expert review, meaning no users were involved at this point. As such, we have employed an Heuristic Evaluation. Then, in order to measure the obtained results, we categorized the usability issues using a three step classification: minor, moderate and severe.

Heuristic Evaluation

Heuristic evaluation was the first method used in our expert review process. Heuristics evaluation (Nielsen, 1992) is a usability inspection method for identifying the usability problems of a user interface design, based on a specific set of principles. Previous research on this topic suggests that on average 5 evaluators identify 75-80% of usability problems. On the other hand, it is difficult for a single individual to perform it, because one person will never be able to find all the usability problems in an interface. Therefore, our evaluation had six different evaluators as our team has six members.

In this project, to perform the heuristic evaluation, we used the “Nielsens’ heuristics” method (Nielsen 1995), that is one of the best-known and well-established within the Human-Computer Interaction community. Within this method, Nielsen established 10 usability heuristics for user interface design, that are listed below:

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  

As mentioned before, this method was applied not only to evaluate the usability of the platform and have a better knowledge of the different aspects of the system, but also to help us in the different steps of the process.

In apendix X is presented a detailed description of each principle of Nielsens’ Heuristics.

Heuristic evaluation results

As mentioned before, performing an heuristic evaluation allowed an initial overview of the platform’s usability problems, helping to understand not only the structural problems of the system, but also to identify and classify the main features that would need to be changed in order to improve its usability.

Several usability issues were found after performing the heuristic evaluation. In this stage, the group identified X issues that contributed to a worst usability of the system, making the students’ interaction with the platform a frustrating experience.