Information Technology Reference
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Table 5. Time taken in minutes
Appl. 1
Appl. 2
Total
Mean (SD)
NHE
106
92
198
49.5 (27.196)
MHE
155
136
291
72.75 (44.776)
that heuristic evaluation is an evaluation tech-
nique strongly dependent on experts' previous
knowledge and expertise with the heuristics, the
application domain, etc.
As a general observation, it is worth mention-
ing that because our study adopted a between-
subjects design, with the inherent risk that indi-
vidual differences between participants can bias
results, the fact that the application of mobile
heuristics results in reduced variation among the
participants' analyses is therefore notable.
The answer to (i) is that we do need specific
heuristics because the traditional heuristics im-
plicitly embody assumptions about static desktop
location and use. The differences between stan-
dard heuristics and the mobile usability heuristics
presented in the section entitled Toward a Set of
Heuristics are precisely due to the differences
between mobile and fixed use.
Our confidence on the correctness (ii) and
sufficiency (iii) is based on the rigorous method-
ology used to derive the heuristics, distilling the
knowledge and expertise in published work (sec-
tion entitled Methodology for Realizing Mobile
Issues ), more analytic refinement of established
heuristics ( Toward a Set of Heuristics , phase 1)
and review by experts ( Toward a Set of Heuristics ,
phase 3). The feedback from experts gives some
confidence in utility (iv), and this was confirmed
by the empirical study (section entitled Assessing
Heuristic Performance ), which also bolstered
confidence in the correctness and sufficiency.
No set of heuristics or guidelines will be com-
plete, but it can be sufficient to cover the more
common or serious pitfalls. However, while the
process of distillation from expert opinion and
empirical testing suggests that the heuristics are
sufficient for current mobile applications, on
their own they do not tell us about applicability
in the future (v). Mobile technology is changing
rapidly and new applications are emerging. While
it would be foolish to believe that we can foresee
all the ramifications of these, we can try to ensure
that we understand the scope of the new mobile
heuristics. In particular if we attempt to make
explicit the different assumptions that underlie
the new heuristics, we will be able to tell when
Reflections toward Deeper Principles
Many of the heuristics in 'traditional' Heuristic
Evaluation appear to be phrased in a way that is
general over all systems, and this is true also of
many of the other forms of design guidelines or
principles used in interaction design. This raises
a number of questions:
1. Why do we need specific heuristics for mo-
bile devices - why not use standard ones?
If (as this article assumes) we do need them,
then this raises further questions.
2. How do we know the heuristics we have
presented are correct?
3. How do we know they are sufficient or
complete?
4. How do we know they work in real design?
5. Can we assess their scopeā€”do our heuristics
simply reflect current mobile technology and
applications?
 
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