HW2: Heuristic Evaluation

Due at 5:00pm on Wednesday, April 16, 2008, by email.

Overview

In this individual assignment, you will do heuristic evaluation on two computer prototypes developed by your classmates.

You will receive your two assignments by email. You should look at the wiki page for each project, which will give you instructions for running the prototype and background information about the project. This is not an anonymous evaluation, so feel free to contact a project group directly if you need more information than their wiki page provides.

As soon as you receive your prototype assignments, try to download and run both prototypes. You don't have to do your heuristic evaluation right away, but poke around a bit and make sure the prototypes appear to work. If you have any difficulty getting a prototype to run or finding a suitable platform to run it, send email to the people who created it, and cc: 6831staff@csail.mit.edu on your email. Do this trial run by this Wednesday, April 9.  We need to get logistical problems out of the way as early as possible.

Follow the heuristic evaluation procedure to evaluate both interfaces carefully. Make a numbered list of usability problems and successes you find. For each problem or positive comment, you should:

• describe the problem or positive feature, using screenshots where helpful;
• identify the relevant usability heuristics (from Nielsen's Ten Usability Heuristics, or any other guidelines we've discussed in class);
• estimate its severity (for problems, use cosmetic, minor, major, or catastrophic; for positive comments, just say good).

You aren't required to recommend solutions for the problems, but any ideas you have would no doubt be appreciated.

Be thorough.  You should have at least 20 useful comments (positive or negative) about each interface that you evaluate.

Write your reports in a readable style.  The usability of your report to its recipients will matter in your grade.  In particular, don't bury the problems you found in reams of free-flowing prose.  Where possible, include screenshots to illustrate the problems you found. In general, make your report easy to read and understand.

What to Hand In

You should hand in two reports, one for each interface you evaluated.  Each report should be a separate PDF file, so that we can distribute them electronically to the appropriate groups. You can attach both reports to the same email message.

Your reports must be submitted in PDF format, not plain text or Microsoft Word. There are free software products for printing documents out to PDF files, e.g. CutePDF Writer.

Your reports will be graded by us.  We will also forward copies of each report (without our grading feedback) to the appropriate group.

Email your reports to 6831handin@csail.mit.edu and include HW2 in the subject line.