Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
Heuristic evaluation
informal methods where usability experts evaluate HCI
dialogues according to established principles (heuristics), speci
￿
c to the project;
Cognitive walkthroughs
s problem solving
process is simulated, and it is analyzed whether the process will lead to the
correct, expected actions or not;
detailed procedures where a user
'
￿
Formal usability inspections
rigid procedures that follow well-de
ned roles
￿
and combine heuristic evaluations with simpli
ed forms of cognitive
walkthroughs;
Pluralistic walkthroughs
meetings where users, developers, and other stake-
holders discuss scenarios and dialogue elements;
￿
Feature inspection
a thorough inspection of features, sequences, processes, and
all aspects that users can eventually come across, pinpointing what aspects are
exceedingly unnatural or require excessive experience/knowledge;
￿
Consistency inspection
the designers inspect and compare interface features
￿
from multiple projects;
￿
Standards inspection
an expert on a speci
c interface standard inspects the
project for compliance.
There have been other methods and methodologies established for the better
evaluation of usability. Card et al. ( 1983 ) proposed the GOMS model, where four
essential constructs are emphasized
goals, operators, methods, and selection rules,
giving the model its acronym. Goals are the specification of user needs and
objectives. Operators are the speci
c objects that will physically describe the HCI.
Methods are programs built from the operators, designed to facilitate the accom-
plishment of the goals. Selection rules then help predicting which method will be
more appropriate for speci
c situations. The ultimate goal of this methodology is to
bridge the gap between the psychological level, where the users
cognitive pro-
cesses develop, and the concrete, physical level, where the system acts.
Pirolli and Card ( 1999 ) in turn describe an adaptive control of thought in
information foraging model (ACT-IF) which is essentially derived from the theories
of evolutionary psychology. The process by which users search and gather infor-
mation is illustratively compared to the process of food foraging, and it is asserted
that users will follow
'
which, in the context of IS, are the perceptions of
value, cost, accessibility, obtained from instinctive cues such as citations, links, and
icons. The stronger and more evident these cues are, the more likely the user is to
make correct choices that ful
scents,
ll his/her needs. Thus, developers need to focus on
methods to appropriately direct users to the information they need.
Usability evaluation models are always interrelated with psychological concepts,
particularly in the
field of cognitive theory, and research in one
field accompanies
research on the other
field. Resorting to essential principles and theories on how the
human mind seeks and absorbs new information and new knowledge, researchers on
IS usability have attempted to use those principles to establish good practices of
development, where developers of new systems take into account the basics of human
psychology to build systems that adequately adjust to the psychological framework of
its users. This is a means to ensure that the system is successfully accepted.
 
Search WWH ::




Custom Search