“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.” (Usability.gov)
Heuristic evaluations are useful in that provide a good and cheap way to give feedback on a website. They can also help website designers pinpoint areas of their site that needs work. It is suggested that a heuristic evaluation is taken out by expert users (more than one) and results are brought together for thorough analysis.
Nielsen (1994) developed 10 heuristics with which websites were to be measured against.
Visibility of system status
The system should always keep users informed about what is going on, through appropriate feedback within reasonable time.
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.
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.
Consistency and standards
Users should not have to wonder whether different words, situations, or actions mean the same thing. Follow platform conventions.
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.
(Read full article on preventing user errors.)
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.
(Read full article on recognition vs. recall in UX.)
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.
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.
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.
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.
To test these heuristics it is best to set up a task or series of tasks on a website or programme and then rate each of these areas according to a severity rating index.
Scoring criteria
0 = I don’t agree that this is a usability problem at all
1 = Cosmetic problem only: need not be fixed unless extra time is available on project
2 = Minor usability problem: fixing this should be given low priority
3 = Major usability problem: important to fix, so should be given high priority
4 = Usability catastrophe: imperative to fix this before product can be released
We used the above as the basis of our heuristic evaluations on the eBook providers we have studied, you can find our studies on the suppliers pages.
Click here to download a Heurisitc Evaluation template
Nielson, J. (1995) Ten usability heuristics. [Online] [Accessed on 1st September 2016] https://www.nngroup.com/articles/ten-usability-heuristics/
Nielson, J. (1995) How to rate severity of usability problems. [Online] [Accessed on 1st September 2016] https://www.nngroup.com/articles/how-to-rate-the-severity-of-usability-problems/
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