Heuristic evaluation: Comparing ways of finding and reporting usability problems

  • Authors:

  • Ebba Thora Hvannberg;Effie Lai-Chong Law;Marta Kristín Lárusdóttir

  • Affiliations:

  • University of Iceland, Hjardarhaga 2-6, 107 Reykjavik, Iceland;Eidgenössische Technische Hochschule Zürich Gloriastrasse 35, CH-8902, Zürich, Switzerland;Reykjavik University, Ofanleiti 2, 103 Reykjavik, Iceland

  • Venue:
  • Interacting with Computers
  • Year:
  • 2007

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Abstract

Research on heuristic evaluation in recent years has focused on improving its effectiveness and efficiency with respect to user testing. The aim of this paper is to refine a research agenda for comparing and contrasting evaluation methods. To reach this goal, a framework is presented to evaluate the effectiveness of different types of support for structured usability problem reporting. This paper reports on an empirical study of this framework that compares two sets of heuristics, Nielsen's heuristics and the cognitive principles of Gerhardt-Powals, and two media of reporting a usability problem, i.e. either using a web tool or paper. The study found that there were no significant differences between any of the four groups in effectiveness, efficiency and inter-evaluator reliability. A more significant contribution of this research is that the framework used for the experiments proved successful and should be reusable by other researchers because of its thorough structure.