evaluate

Requirements:

1. Conduct a heuristic evaluation (individual).

You will perform a heuristic evaluation of another team’s high-fidelity prototype. You can find the team you are evaluating at this spreadsheet (you should evaluate the group below you in this spreadsheet). Your entire team will be assigned to evaluate the same team. However, you will need to do this step individually to create 4 independent evaluations.

Using their tasks, task flows, interface design, screenshots, and high-fidelity prototype, you will apply Nielsen’s heuristics to the user interface. You should be able to get all of this information from their last assignment. Try to focus your evaluation more on giving helpful feedback on what you see rather than on missing features. If you are evaluating a team that is doing speech based interfaces, you may find it useful to instead use heuristics from this paper . Please use the heuristics and numbering scheme from the provided template (reorganized into three groups from Nielsen’s 10 heuristics ). You will produce a report showing the problems in the interface using the provided template .

· Your report (Google Doc) will list each of the problems found in the following format: problem#. heuristic violated description of problem, rationale for why you think it violates the heuristic & suggestion to fix

· Your report will also summarize the number of violations found in each of the ten heuristic categories (make a table – see below) and give the total number of violations in the entire interface. Finally, your report should close with some overall recommendations you have for improving the user interface given what you read about their tasks and what you experienced in testing their prototype (1-2 paragraphs).

template：

Prototype

One sentence description of the UI you are evaluating

Overall Recommendations

1-2 paragraphs of overall recommendations you have for improving the user interface given what you read about their user tasks and what you experienced in testing their prototype (1-2 paragraphs).

Summary of Violations

Category	# Violations
B1: Recognition rather than recall
B2: Aesthetic & Minimalist Design
B3: Match between system and the real world
B4: Consistency and Standards
F1: User control and freedom
F2: Flexibility & efficiency of use
P1: Visibility of system status
P2: Error prevention
P3: Help users recognize, diagnose, and recover from errors
P4: Help & documentation
Total violations

List of Heuristic Violations

List the heuristic violations you identified, describe the problem and rationale for why you think it violates the heuristic, and provide a suggestion for how to fix it. For example:

1. B4 Consistency & Standards The interface used the string “Save” on the first screen for saving the user’s information, but used the string “Store” on the second screen. Users may be confused by this different terminology for the same function. Fix: Use “Save” on all screens.

2. F1 User Control & Freedom The interface brings the user into a set of preference screens when they select “New User”, but doesn’t allow the user out of the dialog until they fill out all four screens. There is no way to cancel from any of the screens if a user came into the first screen by accident. Fix: Add a “Cancel” function to each screen in the sequence.

Evaluation Heuristics for Reference (note these are only examples, not the only definitions!)

Minimize cognitive burden

B1. 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.

B2. 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.

B3. Match between system and the real world : The system should speak the user's 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.

B4. Consistency and standards : Users should not have to wonder whether different words, situations, or actions mean the same thing. Follow platform conventions.

Maximize user freedom

F1. 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.

F2. 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.

Handle problems gracefully

P1. Visibility of system status : The system should always keep users informed about what is going on, through appropriate feedback within reasonable time. Help the user know whether the “right thing” happened.

P2. 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.

P3. 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.

P4. 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.