Re: [Usability] Deja Dup UI Review

[Calum Benson <calum benson oracle com>]

On 17 May 2010, at 15:34, Diego Moya wrote:

> Use cases can help a lot both when creating and evaluating a design.
> The usability expert is supposed to know as much as possible of the
> application context while performing the heuristic evaulation.
> 
> Wikipedia explains it better than me:
> "Often the heuristic evaluation is conducted in the context of use
> cases (typical user tasks), to provide feedback  to the developers on
> the extent to which the interface is likely to be compatible with the
> intended users’ needs and preferences."
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heuristic_evaluation

It's all mostly-irrelevant and off-topic semantics, but I'd somewhat disagree with Wikipedia :) In usability circles, a review conducted by usability experts following certain use cases would more commonly be called an "expert review".  

A classic "heuristic review" is purely systematic, taking the design one screen at a time, and running through a checklist of design principles (such as Nielsen's famous ten[1]) for each one, largely ignoring actual usage.  

Of course, in practice, most reviews tend to end up being a mixture of both techniques anyway -- even if you're doing a strictly-heuristic review, it's hard to completely detach yourself from an intended user's perspective unless you share literally none of their domain knowledge.

Cheeri,
Calum.

[1] <http://www.useit.com/papers/heuristic/heuristic_list.html>

-- 
CALUM BENSON, Interaction Designer     Oracle Corporation, Ireland
mailto:calum benson oracle com         Solaris Desktop Team
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Any opinions are personal and not necessarily those of Oracle Corp.