Enhancing Usability Assessment with a Novel Heuristics-Based Approach Validated in an Actual Business Setting

We have long been committed to improving Usability Evaluation and one of the proposals we have been working on the most is the use and improvement of the Heuristic Evaluation (HE) technique. With this in mind, we proposed an improvement which was tested in an experiment. This article describes an ex...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores: Pascual Almenara, Afra, Granollers i Saltiveri, Toni, Garrido Navarro, Juan Enrique, Albets Mitjaneta, Marta
Tipo de recurso: artículo
Estado:Versión publicada
Fecha de publicación:2024
País:España
Institución:Varias* (Consorci de Biblioteques Universitáries de Catalunya, Centre de Serveis Científics i Acadèmics de Catalunya)
Repositorio:Recercat. Dipósit de la Recerca de Catalunya
OAI Identifier:oai:recercat.cat:10459.1/466273
Acceso en línea:https://doi.org/10.5753/jis.2024.4078
https://hdl.handle.net/10459.1/466273
Access Level:acceso abierto
Palabra clave:Heuristic evaluation
Usability evaluation
Experts of usability
Usability percentage
Descripción
Sumario:We have long been committed to improving Usability Evaluation and one of the proposals we have been working on the most is the use and improvement of the Heuristic Evaluation (HE) technique. With this in mind, we proposed an improvement which was tested in an experiment. This article describes an experiment carried out in a real business professional context. Fifteen usability experts from a reputable company evaluated eight websites (four supermarket and four bank platforms) using our HE proposal for the first time in real-world scenarios. This experimentation analyzed two main aspects: firstly, whether individual or group evaluations affect the final result, and secondly, whether the heuristic evaluation technique is effective in a real business and professional context. Regarding the Usability Percentage (UP) event, the results indicate that there was little difference between group and individual evaluations. The mean UP for the group was 57.88%, while the mean UP for individuals was 56.66%. The experiment provided sufficient information to suggest a new version of our HE methodology, specifically designed to improve results in real-life contexts. Furthermore, the experiment’s findings support the proposal of this new methodology, which is better suited to the business environment.