Heuristic evaluation as a technique to improve usability

Today we will talk about one of the processes that is usually used to evaluate the usability of a website: Heuristic evaluation of websites.

What is website heuristic evaluation?

The heuristic evaluation is a process in which an application or web interface is examined and observed, guided by a set of guiding rules or heuristic principles . It is one of the most used usability inspections followed by the PURE method (which we will talk about in another post). The parents of this technique are Nielsen and Molich, although it was later recovered by Jakob Nielsen and modified for more frequent use.

We can speak of a flexible method in terms of its scope on the website since an evaluation or analysis of specific tasks or of the entire interface can be carried out.

It is essential for this method to follow some heuristic principles to evaluate the interface . These principles are rules and regulations so that the relationship between people and interfaces is the best possible. The most used are the 10 heuristic principles for interface design by Jakob Nielsen.

The main characteristic of this evaluation method is that is not carried out with the help of the users, but the usability experts evaluate the website as if it were the user himself. With this evaluation, important usability errors are detected, but … BEWARE! A user test must be done later to confirm errors and detect any missing ones.

Therefore, heuristic evaluation should go hand in hand with user testing whenever possible. They are not exclusive! & nbsp;

Why should I use this method?

There are several reasons to use heuristic evaluation and these are:

• That the experts detect problems in the interface that affect more than 1 segment of users , when the user test is limited to a single profile.
• Helps to detect the first usability problems , dedicating the user test to more specific failures related to user needs, real interactions with the interface and its context of use.
• Both the heuristic evaluation and other inspections detect usability barriers early in the project and in an agile way . Much faster than with a user test.

When is it done?

The most common is to do it when the interface is fully created or there is a prototype, in very advanced stages of the design process, although it is also done early & nbsp; & nbsp; in the usability cycle.

Although in this post we focus only on the evaluation of websites, with it other digital products or services such as mobile applications can be evaluated.

How many evaluators does heuristic evaluation of websites need?

They usually recommend using between 3 and 5 evaluators, although in very exceptional occasions such as Lean methods, they can reduce the group by making inspections of 1 or 2 people. It is not highly recommended to have such a small number of evaluators, although in exceptional cases due to lack of time and money these minimums are used. Better to have a cursory evaluation than nothing at all

Why is it said that there have to be several experts?

With one person doing the evaluation it is highly unlikely that any bugs or usability problems will be found. & nbsp; With several evaluators it can be observed that:

• Simpler problems are encountered by practically all testers, but more elusive problems are rarely identified by multiple people.
• More difficult problems will be identified.
• It is not known who is the best evaluator, so it is always better to have variety.

How is it usually done?

It is usually to choose several evaluators to carry out the inspection and the scope in which they are going to work is agreed (a single page itself, specific tasks, the entire interface …) < / p>

After agreeing on the main steps , the evaluators usually meet to choose the heuristic principles that they will use and write the questions that will guide the evaluators to make a correct exploration of the interface.

You start by individually evaluating the interface , looking for faults and barriers by asking the questions previously asked. The evaluators always note the violated principles and sometimes also those that are widely complied with

Finally, there is a meeting of the evaluators putting together all the usability problems found by each one and they make a document with the suggestions for improvement in each problem.

What are the advantages and disadvantages?

As any technique has its pros and cons, here we show you the good and the bad of this method.

Advantages:

• It is a cheap, easy method that can be used by people with little experience.
• It is done quite quickly.
• This technique usually helps the designer on the criteria to follow when they have to make their own designs

Disadvantages:

• Will not identify problems with real interactions with a certain context or with specific needs of a user.
• Multiple evaluators are needed so that they find the biggest possible problems.
• Remember that the evaluation alone does not help to prioritize the problems detected.

Finally, we can say that the result of these evaluations is a very valuable input for the design but that it must be verified with user tests to give it all the validity and veracity possible.

As always, we support the evaluation of websites, both with this method and with others in order to ensure that all interfaces are usable and accessible to everyone. And not only is this achieved, but it also improves user satisfaction, translating into a significant improvement in sales or traffic on the company’s pages .

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And you, what do you think of this method?

Do you prefer the user test or another technique?