Before spending your budget on Evaluating Interfaces with Users, it's essential to do a evaluation at your end. At SwitchMe, I took a session with my team of developers to explain importance and method of Evaluating Interfaces at our end first.

1. Evaluate User Interfaces
with Nielsen’s Heuristic Principles

2. Why do we need DIY methods?
The same reason why we test our systems
for functionality, before giving it out for use.

3. Qualitative Methods
● Cognitive Walkthrough
● Expert Evaluation
● Heuristic Evaluation
Quantitative Methods
● KLM, GOMS and other formal analysis
● Informal Action Analysis

4. Heuristic Evaluation
Latest version is 1995a listed here:
https://www.nngroup.com/articles/ten-usabilit
y-heuristics/

5. Evaluation Plan
Examine
● Get trained
● Each heuristic expert will evaluate
List
● Individually list down problems found based
on 10 principles of heuristic evaluation
Collate
● Club all problems of all evaluators in a caveat
● Rank on the basis of severity
Fix ● You’re already an expert on that!

6. Heuristic ~
Dictionary meaning
Enabling a person to discover or learn
something for themselves: a “hands-on” or
interactive heuristic approach to learning.

7. # 1
Visibility of
System Status
The system should always keep users
informed about what is going on,
through appropriate feedback within
reasonable time.

11. Which is the most important status we
want to know these days?!

13. ● Browser/App/Program name
● Favicon
● Logo
● Page heading
● Section heading
● Selected Tab
● Progress bar
● Loader
● Micro interactions
● Click/Hover/Any event Interaction
● Updated information

14. # 2
User control and
freedom
Users often choose system functions by
mistake and will need a clearly marked
"emergency exit" to leave the unwanted
state without having to go through an
extended dialogue. Support undo and
redo.

20. ● Undo
● Redo
Violation:
Android design copied for iOS violates this heuristic

21. # 3
Recognition rather
than recall
Minimize the user's memory load by
making objects, actions, and options
visible. The user should not have to
remember information from one part of
the dialogue to another. Instructions for
use of the system should be visible or
easily retrievable whenever appropriate.

24. ● Recents
● Browsing History
● Visited Links

25. # 4
Match between
system & the real
world
The system should speak the users'
language, with words, phrases and
concepts familiar to the user, rather
than system-oriented terms. Follow
real-world conventions, making
information appear in a natural and
logical order.

29. # 5
Consistency and
standards
Users should not have to wonder
whether different words, situations, or
actions mean the same thing.

36. Consistency and standards not just applies to customer facing interfaces

37. # 6
Flexibility and Ease
of Use
“Accelerators”
— unseen by the novice user
— may often speed up the interaction
for the expert user such that the system
can cater to both inexperienced and
experienced users. Allow users to tailor
frequent actions.

41. ● Keyboard actions/shortcuts
● Touch/Trackpad/Mouse Gestures
● Autofills
● Save information

42. # 7
Help users
recognize, diagnose,
and recover from
errors
Error messages should be expressed in
plain language (no codes), precisely
indicate the problem, and constructively
suggest a solution.

44. Properties of error messages:
● Explicit
● Human Readable Language
● Precise
● Constructive
● Polite

45. # 8
Error prevention
Even better than good error messages is
a careful design which prevents a
problem 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.

47. Think of violation that happened last week (hint: emails)

48. # 9
Help and
documentation
Even though it is better if the system
can be used without documentation, it
may be necessary to provide help and
documentation. Any such information
should be easy to search, focused on the
user's task, list concrete steps to be
carried out, and not be too large.

49. Type-1: Detailed documentation
Type-2: Community centres
Type-3: Question and Answers examples normal chat, chat-bots
There are product companies based on Help & Documentation provide
integrations for example StackExchange, ZenDesk, BotsCrew, Haptik
This is a screenshot from Clevertap

50. # 10
Aesthetic and
minimalist design
Dialogues should not contain
information which is irrelevant or rarely
needed. Every extra unit of information
in a dialogue competes with the
relevant units of information and
diminishes their relative visibility.

52. Think of chart-junks

53. Severity Rating
Ranges from 0-4
0 - I don’t agree that this is a Usability Problem at all
1 - Cosmetic Problem. Fix it only if we have extra time
2 - Minor usability problem
3 - Major usability problem
4 - Usability Catastrophe

54. Tips
● Go through the interface back and forth 2-3 times then start evaluating.
● Don’t perform the real task, explore!
● Open google doc, for each problem write:
a. Problem details
b. Screenshot/Video/GIF
c. Severity rating
d. Heuristic
e. Why does that heuristic apply

55. Let’s discuss...

56. Keep Evaluating...