Assignment 4: Heuristic Evaluation

The Heuristic Evaluation assignment was especially helpful in that it was our first foray into having a hands-on evaluation. The Nielsen's Heuristics guide was especially helpful in doing the project because it scientifically rationalizes the usability of a site that seemed very obvious to us users, but we could never really put into words. The without the guide, I feel like I wouldn't be able to come up with 90% of the heuristic violations I found on MemCatch.

One thing that boggles my mind is how easy it was to follow the sheet and do a heuristic evaluation. It seems that this is one of the cheapest, if the most cost effective evaluation method we've learned in class. It only entails using the Nielsen guide and following directions on a website. The materials and setup also factor into the cost effectivity, because you would only need a single evaluator and a computer for the entire test.

As far as the time needed to complete the evaluation, it seems like it would depend on how thorough you want your report to be. In the span of 5-6 hours, I already had two full pages of heuristic evaluations, including the time to find the errors, test them and typing them up.

One take away from the heuristic evaluation is that it still employs the software developer's perspective to find these errors. The errors found were not meant to catere to serve the audience it was intended for, but it still is a great method to have a quick usability evaluation for the website.