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Table 4. Mobile heuristics and corresponding usability problems
Mobile
Heuristics 1-8
Number of Usability
Problems
Description of Heuristic
3
20
Consistency and mapping
5
13
Ease of input, screen readability and glancability
2
13
Match between system and the real world
8
9
Realistic error management
1
5
Visibility of system status and losability/findability of the mobile device
6
3
Flexibility, efficiency of use and personalization
4
2
Good ergonomics and minimalist design
7
1
Aesthetic, privacy and social conventions
[Consistency and mapping], 5 [Ease of input,
screen readability and glancability], 2 [Match
between system and the real world]). We could
consider the highlighted Nielsen's and mobile
heuristics as being those most violated or most
noticed, although their recurrence could be due
to the particular type of evaluation/application(s)
that were provided to experts.
The mobile heuristics probably scored such
high figures (i.e. were able to identify more flaws
under these related heuristics) because of the way
the mobile heuristics have been revised and/or
extended to capture mobile computing aspects.
It is interesting to note that the mobile heuris-
tics “bring to the top” heuristics that are related to
context. For instance: Nielsen's heuristic 2 has a
score of 4; the related revised heuristic for mobile
computing (mobile heuristic 2) scores 13. It may
therefore be observed that the mobile heuristics
make issues and flaws that have to do with context
more apparent during the evaluation. Also, from
our qualitative analysis of experts' reports it was
found that when the evaluator identified a flaw
that could not be straightforwardly mapped to a
specific mobile heuristic, s/he chose to assign it
to mobile heuristic 2 or 3. Moreover, an evaluator
stressed the need to make more explicit the word
'context' in the description of mobile heuristic
3. The description of the heuristic is found in
the section entitled
Methodology for Realizing
Mobile Heuristics
.
As seen in Table 3, the participants reported
some usability problems regarding 'Help and
documentation' (Nielsen's heuristic 10). This
observation may be an indication that people using
mobile applications still expect such applications
to provide help. Though they might prefer that
the help be 'interactive', non-distractive, not be
a separate task, etc., the designer could consider
the use of audio or some 'light-weight' approach
(e.g. FAQs).
Time Taken to Evaluate
It seems that the application of the mobile heuris-
tics was more time demanding during the whole
evaluation, as seen in Table 5. This may be due
to the experts' relative unfamiliarity with these
heuristics compared to Nielsen's heuristics. We
tried to reduce this familiarity issue (it cannot be
eliminated simply in an evaluation session) by
giving the experts who were using the mobile
heuristics some extra time at the beginning of
the evaluation to study the mobile heuristics, in
order to familiarize themselves with them and
to ask questions. Although the application of the
mobile heuristics was more time demanding,
we should, however, also observe that variation
among experts was relatively high, confirming
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