To complete this assignment, your group needs to choose an application. In general, your choice should be a simple application. Common office and business software such as word processors, database systems, or spreadsheets are far too complicated given the time and effort expected of this project. I would much prefer a thoughtful and thorough evaluation of a simple application. Public domain software and Web CGI's and applets are a good place to look.
I must be able to run your chosen application. I work on a Windows platform and will accept applications that run on this through any reasonable submission process (disk, download instructions, etc.). For Web CGI's and applets, submitting the URL is fine. An application that runs on a Palm device is also a possibility.
Before starting your evaluation, send me a note describing your chosen application. While it is not required, it might be instructive to use the same application on subsequent assignments.
To perform both evaluations, your group will need to make some assumptions on who will be using the application. Before you begin, assemble a brief user profile of whom you think would likely use the application.
It is important that group members individually perform the heuristic evaluation before discussing the usability of the application as a group. Use the guidelines in Table 2.2 (p. 30) from the Nielsen and Mack text. We will go over the heuristic evaluation and this table in class. Chapter 2 in the Nielsen and Mack text serves as a reference. Pages 25-32 and pages 40-41 are particularly relevant to this assignment.
Once your group has individually evaluated the application, discuss your individual findings and consolidate them in a guideline-by-guideline summary. With discussion, your group may decide to omit or alter items from the individual reports. Depending on your evaluation, each guideline should have a finding ranging from a couple of sentences to a couple of paragraphs.
Perform a cognitive walkthrough using an appropriately chosen task for your application. We will cover the cognitive walkthrough in class. Your report should contain the details outlined on pages 111 and 112 of the Nielsen and Mack text. Make sure your report includes all of the bulleted information (p. 112) for each action. As much as possible, keep the information short and concise. Chapter 5 presents some examples, but you need not follow the same format.
Based on your evaluations, your group should prepare a list of at least three possible recommendations for changing the interface. In some cases, for applications producing a good evaluation, you may decide against any recommendations. In these cases, you should still discuss possible changes and why your group decided against them. Order your list from most important to least important. Nielsen's Severity Ratings (pp. 47-49) may help you prioritize your recommendations.
For submitting your assignment, submit either a hard copy or the URL of your group's HTML-formatted report. If you choose to create an HTML-formatted report, make sure that the report is on only one Web page. That is, avoid frames and links to additional sections of your report, although links to the notes from the individual evaluations is fine. The report should include the following:
How I grade your project is necessarily a subjective process. Generally, any project that closely adheres to the above instructions will receive at least 16 (out of 20) points. Projects that are thoughtful, well-edited, systematic and concise will generally receive 18 or 19 points. A truly outstanding report will receive 20 points. Note that a long report is not necessarily a good report!
I will use this grading sheet to help me review the project.