Hello Elise,
There are a number of methods that go by various names: walkthroughs,
inspections, design reviews, and expert reviews. Some of the
approaches that you might consider in addition to those that Daniel
listed are listed below. These vary in the degree of formality with
the formal usability inspection following many of the ground rules of
software inspections. There are some very good books on how to
conduct software inspections that I've round useful. There are
several approaches that I describe below that ask reviewers to adopt
different perspectives. I've found this approach quite powerful. You
might, for example, ask someone to adopt the perspective of a brand
new user and another person to be the consistency czar and another
person be the work-flow-efficiency inspector.
Chauncey
Participatory Heuristic Evaluation (Muller, Matheson, Page, & Gallup,
1995). This is a variation on the heuristic evaluation that includes
users as well as members of the product team. Muller and his
colleagues also added heuristics that dealt with task and work support
issues.
Cooperative Evaluation (Monk, Wright, Haber, & Davenport, 1993)
Monk and his colleagues (1993) published a procedural guide to a
technique they called "cooperative evaluation". Cooperative evaluation
involves pairing a user and designer in an evaluation of a working
version of a product. In the cooperative evaluation, users can freely
ask questions of the designer and the designer can ask questions of
the user.
Heuristic Walkthrough (Sears, 1997)
Sears (1997) developed a technique called a "heuristic walkthrough"
that had some of the attributes of three UCD methods: a heuristic
evaluation, a perspective-based inspection and a cognitive
walkthrough. In Sears' method, the evaluators were given a prioritized
list of user tasks, a set of heuristics, and "thought-provoking"
questions derived from the cognitive walkthrough method.
Persona-based inspections.
In this type of inspection, the reviewers take on the perspective of
the key personas and work through a set of tasks. This approach may
yield different problems for different personas.
Perspective-based inspections.
A perspective-based user interface inspection requires that one or
more individuals evaluate a product's user interface from different
perspectives. The use of multiple perspectives (similar to
role-playing) is meant to broaden the problem-finding ability of
evaluators (Virzi, 1997), especially those colleagues with little or
no background in usability or user interface design.
In perspective-based inspections, inspectors are generally given
descriptions of one or more perspectives that they are to focus on, a
list of user tasks, a set of questions related to the perspective, and
possibly a set of heuristics related to the perspective. Inspectors
are asked to work through tasks from the assigned perspectives.
The Structured Heuristic Evaluation Method
Kurosu, Matsuura, and Sugizakiu (1997) proposed a variation on the
heuristic evaluation called the structured heuristic evaluation method
(sHEM). The sHEM involves multiple evaluation sessions with each
session focusing on one category of usability and a set of associated
heuristics that defined each category. The categories of usability in
Kurosu's sHEM were:
1. Ease of cognition (part 1).
2. Ease of operation.
3. Ease of cognition (part 2).
4. Pleasantness.
5. Novice versus expert users.
6. Users with special care (this category dealt with very young and
elderly users; users who had visual, hearing, or physical
disabilities; left-handed users, and color-blind users).
Cognitive efficiency was the rationale for focusing on only one
category of usability during a session. Kurosu and his colleagues felt
that trying to keep many heuristics in mind while reviewing a product
was difficult for evaluators.
Cognitive Walkthrough
The cognitive walkthrough (CW) is a usability inspection technique
that focuses primarily on the ease of learning of a product. The
cognitive walkthrough is based on a theory that users often learn how
to use a product through a process of exploration, not through formal
training courses (Polson & Lewis, 1990). The cognitive walkthrough was
originally designed to evaluate "walk-up-and-use" interfaces (for
example museum kiosks, postage machines, and ATM machines), but has
been applied to more complex products (CAD systems, operating
procedures, software development tools) that support new and
infrequent users (Wharton, Bradford, Jeffries, & Franzke, 1992;
Novick, 1999). The cognitive walkthrough is based on the concept of a
hypothetical user and does not require any actual users.
Streamlined Cognitive Walkthrough
Rick Spencer developed a simplified version of the cognitive
walkthrough that was more applicable to fast-paced development
environments.
Spencer, R. (2000). The streamlined cognitive walkthrough method,
working around social constraints encountered in a software
development company. Proceedings of ACM CHI 2000 Conference on Human
Factors in Computing Systems (pp. 353-359). New York: ACM Press.
Pluralistic Walkthrough
The pluralistic walkthrough is a group usability evaluation that
follows a predefined set of task scenarios. A facilitator presents the
participants with an image of the interface for each step in a task.
Participants are asked to decide what actions they would take for each
step to get to the next step in the task (independently without
discussion) and to write those actions down on walkthrough forms
containing the screen shots of the user interface. When everyone has
written down their actions for a specific step in a task, the
facilitator reveals the "correct answer" and invites the group to
discuss their answers.
Collaborative Usability Inspection
Constantine and Lockwood (1999) describe a method called
"collaborative usability inspection" that melds the pluralistic
walkthrough and heuristic evaluation methods. The focus of the
collaborative usability inspections is on rapid identification of
usability defects. Like the pluralistic review, Constantine and
Lockwood ask the inspection team to put themselves in the role of user
by cultivating a "practiced naiveté" (p. 404).
Formal Usability Inspections
The formal usability inspection is a method that is derived from
formal software inspections (Kahn & Prail, 1994). Formal usability
inspections have a clearly defined process with trained inspectors,
explicit roles for members of the inspection team, and a set of
defined activities and explicit ground rules (Wiegers, 2002; Kahn &
Prail, 1994).
Individual Expert Review
An individual expert review can incorporate components of think-aloud
testing, heuristic evaluation, checklist reviews, perspective-based
inspections, and other evaluation methods. The key difference between
an individual expert review and other inspection methods is that here
a single individual is responsible for generating a list of problems,
and often solutions to those problems, without substantive help from
others.
Consistency Inspection
A consistency inspection is used to find different types of
inconsistencies in a product. The types of inconsistencies that are
the target for this type of inspection include (Nielsen, 1989):
• Visual inconsistencies (layout, color, and graphic design
differences where none would be expected).
• Interaction inconsistencies (different ways to do the same thing).
• Control inconsistencies (for example, different pages on the same
Web site use different calendar controls).
• Inconsistencies between the system model and the user's mental model
(Grudin, 1989))
• Error prevention inconsistencies (for example, in one case you
provide a cue on the required format for phone numbers while
elsewhere, you have no cues and get an error message if you use the
wrong format)
• Terminology inconsistencies ("Login" and "Log in" are both used as
labels in different parts of the site or product and "sign-in" is used
in the Help for the product).
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