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6.831 • User Interface Design and Implementation

Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science
Fall Semester, 2006

AC14: Heuristic Evaluation

The purpose of this activity is to practice doing heuristic evaluation on a real user interface -- in this case, an e-commerce web site. You will need a web browser for this activity..

The web site you will evaluate is www.blowoff.com. Explore at least three parts of the site:

  1. Start by evaluating the home page;
  2. Then evaluate the page for one product, such as BlowOff Duster;
  3. Finally, try to buy the product and evaluate the checkout page.

Record usability problems in the space below. Justify every observation by naming one or more usability heuristics (design principles) that it violates. Assign a severity rating to each problem (cosmetic, minor, major, or catastrophic).

Include at least one positive usability comment, again justifying it by naming one or more heuristics.

Problem Heuristic Severity