Goals
The goal of this assignment is to learn how to perform a heuristic evaluation of a real
user interface.
Overview
You have been hired as a consultant to another group in the class. They are building a new
user interface for their course project, but they would like some outside assistance in
finding some problems with their prototype interface. The group you evaluate should be
your own group + 1 (mod 10). So if you're in group 1, evaluate group 2's project, if
you're in 2, evaluate 3, etc. and if you're in 10, evaluate 1.
Evaluation
You will perform a heuristic evaluation (on your own) of their user interface using only
the materials they turned in for the last project report. Using their tasks, scenarios, UI
design, screen shots, and interactive prototype you will apply Nielsen's heuristics to the
UIs. You should be able to get all of this information from their web page. Read their
report first and then examine their prototype (i.e., run it). Your evaluation will use
both the information in the written report and the prototype.
Please use the second set of heuristics I gave in class (also described in Nielsen's
chapter) and the numbering scheme from my lecture slides (e.g., 2-1, 2-2, etc.). After
finding all of the problems, go back and assign a severity (from the 0-4 scale defined in
class) for each violation you found. You will produce a report showing the problems in the
interface.
Report
Your report will list each of the problems found in the following format:
problem# [heuristic violated][severity]
description of problem and reasoning why you think this violates the heuristic
For example:
5. [H2-4 Consistency & Standards] [severity = 2]
The interface used the string "Save" on the first screen for saving the user's
file, but used the string "Write file" on the second screen. Users may be
confused by this different terminology for the same function.
6. [H2-3 User Control & Freedom] [severity = 3]
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 4
screens. There is no way to cancel from any of the screens if a user came into the first
screen by accident.
Your report will also summarize the number of violations found in each of the ten
heuristic categories and give the total number of violations in the entire interface. You
should also list the total number of violations in each severity category.
Finally, your report should close with some overall recommendations you have for improving
the user interface given what you read of their description.
Deliverable
Your printed write-up (turn TWO copies in on paper) should follow this outline with
separate sections for the top-level items:
1.Problem (one sentence description of the UI you are evaluating)
2.Violations found
3.Summary of violations
4.Recommendations
Grading
You will be graded on how complete your HE is in terms of coverage of the presented user
interface design, clarity of your violation descriptions, and quality of your
recommendations.
You should concentrate on the interface the group has designed, not only on what has been
implemented. Reports that continually report on features that are missing, but will
clearly be added will be marked down (e.g., "there should be help on this screen...
and this screen..." -- if it is a globally missing feature you can report it once).
We want to focus on evaluating what they have designed so far.