Heuristic Evaluation #1

1. Application Description

UVicSchedule application is being evaluated in this heuristic evaluation. The application is used to organize your course schedule. You are able to add and drop courses on your schedule. Also, you can share your schedule with your friends and see their schedules as well.

2. Nielsen's heuristics and descriptions

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


2. Match between system and real world (Speak the user's language)
   Speak the users' language, with words, phrases and concepts familiar to the user. Follow real-world conventions, and natural / logical order.


3. User control and freedom (Clearly marked exits)
   Users often choose system functions by mistake and will need a clearly marked and quick “emergency exit”. Support undo and redo, a clear way to navigate.


4. Consistency and standards
   Users should not have to wonder whether different words, situations, or actions mean the same thing. Follow platform conventions.


5. Help users recognize, diagnose, recover from errors
   Error messages should be expressed in plain language, precisely indicate the problem, and suggest a solution.


6. Error prevention
   Even better than good error messages is a careful design, which prevents a problem from occurring in the first place.


7. Recognition rather than recall
   Minimize the user's memory load. Make objects, actions, options, and instructions visible.


8. Flexibility and efficiency of use
   Accelerators — unseen by the novice — may speed up interaction for the expert. Allow users to tailor frequent actions.


9. Aesthetic and minimalist design
   Dialogues should not contain information that is irrelevant or rarely needed. Visual layout principles: contrast, repetition, alignment, and proximity.


10. 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.

Nielsen's Scale:

0 = I don't agree that this is a usability problem at all.
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.

3. Findings

3.1 [Recognition][Severity 3]

• When you try to add a new course, you cannot see the schedule clearly. You miss some days.
• This is a major usability problem. I need to see the schedule clearly so I can see if the course fits my schedule.
• When the bar on the left appears, the size of the schedule should get smaller. Therefore, the user would be able to see entire schedule.

3.2 [Recognition][Severity 2]

• It is hard to see the time bar
• This is a minor usability problem. It doesn’t affect the user but if someone who has vision problems would have a hard time to recognize.
• The time bar would be bigger so users would see it easily.

3.3 [Recognition][Severity 2]

• Abbreviations of the courses are not clear. Users have to know the abbreviations.
• This is a minor usability problem. When you click on the courses, in the description it is not shown what the abbreviation stands for.
• In the description the full name of the course should be written so the user would know what the abbreviation stands for.

3.4 [Error prevention][Severity 3]

• Logout button wouldn't be next to the other buttons because it is easy to hit the button mistakenly when you try to navigate other screens.
• The user would navigate the login screen so he has to login again. That is waste of time so this is a major usability problem
• The button would be on the right so it would be hard to make a mistake

4. Summary

Even though there are a few major and minor usability problems, the application is still usable and efficient. The user would use the application easily and wouldn’t have a hard time to figure out how the application runs.

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