A heuristic evaluation is when a UX expert looks at an interface, and they analyse it, looking at what is good/bad about it, what needs improved, and how the user experience is overall. A heuristic evaluation is the same as a UX audit. This could take place by reviewing another product, and you can use features and elements that you think work well and implement them into your own designs. It can also take place by evaluating a current product that is about to be released, to make improvements before it is launched.

10 Heuristic Laws

In 1990, Jakob Nielson came up with 10 different usability heuristics for user-interface design. These have originally been used as a rule of thumb when undertaking design heuristics.

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1. Visibility of System Status - The design should always keep users informed about what is going on, through appropriate feedback within a reasonable amount of time.
2. Match between System and the Real World - The design should speak the users' language. Use words, phrases, and concepts familiar to the user, rather than internal jargon. Follow real-world conventions, making information appear in a natural and logical order.
3. User Control and Freedom - Users often perform actions by mistake. They need a clearly marked "emergency exit" to leave the unwanted action without having to go through an extended process.
4. Consistency and Standards - Users should not have to wonder whether different words, situations, or actions mean the same thing. Follow platform and industry conventions. An example of this would be that a call to action button will be bright and large to indicate to the user that this should be pressed.
5. Error Prevention - Good error messages are important, but the best designs carefully prevent problems from occurring in the first place. Either eliminate error-prone conditions, or check for them and present users with a confirmation option before they commit to the action.
6. Recognition Rather than Recall - Minimize the user's memory load by making elements, actions, and options visible. The user should not have to remember information from one part of the interface to another. Information required to use the design (e.g. field labels or menu items) should be visible or easily retrievable when needed.
7. Flexibility and Efficiency of Use - Shortcuts that may be hidden from novice users, may speed up the interaction for the expert user so that the design can cater to both inexperienced and experienced users. Allow users to tailor frequent actions.
8. Aesthetic and Minimalistic Design - Interfaces should not contain information that is irrelevant or rarely needed. Every extra unit of information in an interface competes with the relevant units of information and diminishes their relative visibility.
9. Help Users Recognise, Diagnose, and Recover from Errors - Error messages should be expressed in plain language, precisely indicate the problem, and constructively suggest a solution.
10. Help & Documentation - It’s best if the system doesn’t need any additional explanation. However, it may be necessary to provide documentation to help users understand how to complete their tasks. </aside>

My Thoughts

I think that these heuristics guidelines are super beneficial, as they give me a structure to follow when undertaking UX audits or heuristics. I think that all of these laws are important but I really think that number 4 is so important. There is nothing worse than using a new app or website and not knowing how to use it, and this is usually because they don’t follow the norms when it comes to UX design, making it extremely hard to navigate and use. Another one that I think is essential when undertaking UX audits is number 2. User research will be important here as we need to have a specific target user that we are trying to speak to with our product. This will create empathy with the user, and will help us be emotionally intelligent with how they think, feel, and what there needs are. Once we do this we can apply this to our designs and really make a connection with them. One more law that I think is super important is number 8. The reason why I think this one is so important is because as UX designers we shouldn’t be including information or data on the screen that doesn’t enhance or improve the functionality of the interface, so checking through this and asking ourselves whether this element needs to be on the screen is crucial to how the interface looks and feels.

Severity Levels

When performing a UX audit, after finding out what needs to be improved about the product, we must rank how much of an issue it is and whether it needs immediate attention. There are 4 different levels of severity, and this will guide us as to what action to take with the problem. We can ask different questions and discuss with our team as to whether action needs taken or not. Here are the 4 levels below:

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1: Cosmetic problem only: need not be fixed unless extra time is available on project

2: Minor usability problem: fixing this should be given low priority

3: Major usability problem: important to fix, so should be given high priority

4: Usability catastrophe: imperative to fix this before product can be released

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Translink UX Audit

We were then put into group and we were given the task of undertaking a brief UX audit of Translink’s website. I was with Ryan, Michael, and Matthew and together we were able to discover a few different problems with the Translink website. We created a Word document and logged all of the problems we found in a table. There was mostly the same issues coming up, for example there was some screens that had information that simply wasn’t needed and added no functionality to it, violating law 8. There was also some terms that we didn’t understand, so assumed that these were just bus jargons. This violated law 2, as the average user of the translink website wouldn’t know these terms. By far the biggest problems that we came across was with their chat bot. One big one was the fact that it did the exact same as the other features, adding nothing to the user experience but instead requiring the user to type more and this was just hassle. Another major one was the fact that the chat bot deletes your conversation when you exit off it. This means that if you want to go off it and back on again then you need to start again.

Fixing The Chat Bot

I then came up with a way to fix the chat bot, mainly so that it could remember your conversation, and this way it is more useful and the user doesn’t need to start the conversation again when they click off it. Starting with sketches I was able to redesign where the chat bot was located on the website, and instead of it being in the bottom corner, I placed it in the centre of the screen making it the primary way that the user finds timetables and bus times. Once the user pressed on the button/chat bot, they could then type in where they were travelling from and where they were travelling to. I think that this way the chat bot isn’t completely useless and it also combines the function of a few other features and joins them together in one place. The chat bot will also remember previous conversations that the user had, giving them more control if they accidentally click off it. Overall I think this is an improvement of the Translink website and doing a UX audit was useful to put a system in place for analysing and making improvements.

Conclusion

Todays class was a good bit shorter than usual, but it was still very beneficial as this is another UX method that will help us in the future. It was also cool to see one of the UX audits that our teacher had undertaken himself, and the process he went through to achieve that. Completing the UX audit of Translink was a fun group activity to complete and it was a great way to put what we just learnt into practice.