Usability inspection methods after 15 years of research and practice

Hollingsed, Tasha; Novick, David G.

doi:10.1145/1297144.1297200

Cited by 129 publications

(92 citation statements)

References 30 publications

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“…− HE is one of the best-known inspection methods. This allows us to gather more accuracy information about its employment [Hollingsed and Novick 2007].. − He is one of the most widely-used evaluation methods in industry. For instance, half of the ten Web intranets that won a 2005 competition used this method [Nielsen 2005].…”

Section: Methods Evaluatedmentioning

confidence: 99%

Empirical validation of a usability inspection method for model-driven Web development

Fernandez¹,

Abrahão²,

Insfrán³

2013

Journal of Systems and Software

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Web applications should be usable in order to be accepted by users and to improve the success probability. Despite the fact that this requirement has promoted the emergence of several usability evaluation methods, there is a need for empirically validated methods that provide evidence about their effectiveness and that can be properly integrated into early stages of Web development processes. Model-driven Web development processes have grown in popularity over the last few years, and offer a suitable context in which to perform early usability evaluations due to their intrinsic traceability mechanisms. These issues have motivated us to propose a Web Usability Evaluation Process (WUEP) which can be integrated into model-driven Web development processes. This paper presents a family of experiments that we have carried out to empirically validate WUEP. The family of experiments was carried out by 64 participants, including PhD and Master's computer science students. The objective of the experiments was to evaluate the participants' effectiveness, efficiency, perceived ease of use and perceived satisfaction when using WUEP in comparison to an industrial widely-used inspection method: Heuristic Evaluation (HE). The statistical analysis and meta-analysis of the data obtained separately from each experiment indicated that WUEP is more effective and efficient than HE in the detection of usability problems. The evaluators were also more satisfied when applying WUEP, and found it easier to use than HE. Although further experiments must be carried out to strengthen these results, WUEP has proved to be a promising usability inspection method for Web applications which have been developed by using model-driven development processes.

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Section: Methods Evaluatedmentioning

confidence: 99%

Empirical validation of a usability inspection method for model-driven Web development

Fernandez¹,

Abrahão²,

Insfrán³

2013

Journal of Systems and Software

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“…The heuristic evaluation method can be used by experts and non-experts [12], although expert evaluators typically produce better results [15,27]. Further, the method is widely accepted as relatively easy and cost-effective in evaluating the usability and accessibility of interactive systems' interfaces [12,26].…”

Section: Suggested Usability and Accessibility Evaluation Methods Formentioning

confidence: 99%

The Design of Application-Specific Heuristics for the Usability Evaluation of the Digital Doorway

Adebesin¹,

Kotzé²

2012

SACJ

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The Digital Doorway (DD) is a joint initiative between the South African Department of Science and Technology (DST) and the Meraka Institute of the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR). The DD is a non-standard computer system deployed amongst underprivileged communities in South Africa with the objective to promote computer literacy. Since its inception, there has been no usability or accessibility evaluation of the software installed on the DD, mainly due to lack of usability engineering or interaction design expertise within the development team. The goal of the research presented in this paper was to design a solution to this problem by developing a suitable instrument that could guide DD application developers in the design and development of more usable DD software and interfaces. Design research was used as a research methodology. We first investigated the applicability of the standard usability and accessibility evaluation methods for evaluating the software installed on the DD. During the first cycle of design research, we established that a heuristic-like evaluation method would be an appropriate method for evaluating the usability and direct accessibility support provided by the DD. During a second cycle of design research, embedded in the first, we also developed a set of multi-category heuristics as the ‘instrument’ that could guide the developers during design of applications as well as in the first-level (formative) evaluation thereof. To verify the heuristics, we conducted a usability evaluation of the DD and triangulated the results with a direct field observation at a natural environment of DD use, together with user-administered questionnaires.

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“…As far as usability measurement is concerned [8], this study employed the technique of cognitive walkthroughs [9], [10],which is a technique for evaluating the design of a user interface. This technique was chosen because it allows the evaluation to be conducted with a group of users who may not be subject-matter experts [11].…”

Section: Usability Measurementmentioning

confidence: 99%

Accessible Video-Call Application on Android for the Blind

Maneesaeng¹,

Punyabukkana²,

Suchato³

2016

LNSE

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Abstract-Video call function on smartphone, if properly implemented, can become a vital tool for people with visual disabilities to communicate with their assistants. We evaluated six popular video call applications on Android: Line, Skype, Hangouts, Tango, WeChat and Viber, and found that none of them was readily accessible for the blinds. Nonetheless, Tango outperformed their competitors as it could accomplish six out of seven mandatory tasks. In terms of efficiency, Hangout stood out because it was able to complete five out seven tasks with the least amount of time. Regarding effectiveness, no significant difference was found among the seven applications. We then analyzed their user interface and proposed a guideline as an extension to WCAG 2.0. Finally, we simulated a new UI based on our guideline and ensure accessibility and minimum swipes. The proposed design was evaluated by a blind user and found an improvement on five of seven tasks. The overall improvement was 53.15%.

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Usability inspection methods after 15 years of research and practice

Cited by 129 publications

References 30 publications

Empirical validation of a usability inspection method for model-driven Web development

Empirical validation of a usability inspection method for model-driven Web development

The Design of Application-Specific Heuristics for the Usability Evaluation of the Digital Doorway

Accessible Video-Call Application on Android for the Blind

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