Title :
Experimental Evaluation of Usability Heuristics
Author :
Paz, Freddy ; Villanueva, Daniela ; Rusu, Calin ; Roncagliolo, Silvana ; Pow-Sang, Jose Antonio
Author_Institution :
Pontificia Univ. Catolica de Valparaiso, Valparaiso, Chile
Abstract :
This paper presents an empirical analysis about how the Nielsen´s usability heuristics are perceived by novice evaluators. Twenty-eight undergraduate students of an Informatics Engineering program were trained in usability and heuristic evaluations for this purpose. They were asked to perform a heuristic evaluation of a transactional Web site. A survey was taken in order to capture their perceptions about the usability heuristics. The design of the survey was focused on determining evaluators´ perceptions about six dimensions: ease of use, usefulness, clarity, checklist necessity, intention to use and completeness. Analyzing the results, we could determine that all the above mentioned constructs have an influence in the intention to use the heuristics in future usability evaluations, excepting the perceived clarity. Based on the obtained results, a perception-based model of the usability heuristics is presented.
Keywords :
Web sites; software quality; software reusability; Informatics Engineering program; Nielsen usability heuristics; empirical analysis; perception-based model; transactional Web site; Analysis of variance; Informatics; Inspection; Instruments; Usability; Web sites; evaluation constructs; experimental evaluation; perception model; usability evaluation; usability heuristics;
Conference_Titel :
Information Technology: New Generations (ITNG), 2013 Tenth International Conference on
Conference_Location :
Las Vegas, NV
Print_ISBN :
978-0-7695-4967-5
DOI :
10.1109/ITNG.2013.23