OBSERVATION AND HEURISTIC EVALUATION

Squint Test

Most Important Thing should catch your eye first

Scientific reasoning

Magnocellular neurons <> Parvocellular neurons

Both parts of the Lateral Geniculate Nucleus of the thalamus

  • M-Cells: sensitive to gross shape, luminance, and motion
  • P-Cells: sensitive to color and detailed shape

Redesign

Heuristic Evaluation

Photo by unsplash-logoRaul Varzar

Heuristic = practical method to find a sufficient non-optimal solution in a reasonable amount of time
(from Greek εὑρίσκω meaning "I find out")

Nielsen’s usability heuristics

  1. Visibility of system status

    2. keep users informed through appropriate feedback

  2. Match between system and the real world

    3. speak the users'language with real-world terms

  3. User control and freedom

    4. provide an "emergency exit", support undo and redo

  4. Consistency and standards

    5. keep your system familiar to the user

  5. Error prevention

    6. eliminate error-prone conditions or mitigate risks

  6. Recognition rather than recall

    7. minimize user's memory load by making options visible

  7. Flexibility and efficiency of use

    8. allow users to tailor frequent actions

  8. Aesthetic and minimalist design

    9. extra unit of information should be relevant and justified

  9. Help users recognize, diagnose, and recover from errors

    10. error messages should be clear and suggest a solution

  10. Help and documentation

    11. provide documentation but do not rely on it only

1

Visibility of system status

keep users informed through appropriate feedback

The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild provided consistent and nearly immediate feedback for player’s health status via the 3 heart icons displayed in the top left corner of the screen.

2

Match between
system and the real world

speak the users'language with real-world terms

PlayerUnknown’s Battleground used real-world weapon terminology for in-game weapons.

3

User control and freedom

provide an "emergency exit", support undo and redo

The Chess iOS game gave users the control and freedom to undo their last move.

4

Consistency and standards

keep your system familiar to the user

FIFA players used to play the game with "circle" for shoot and "square" for lob pass while PES players usually prefer the opposite controls.

5

Error prevention

eliminate error-prone conditions or mitigate risks

Super Smash Bros on Nintendo Switch provided a confirmation dialog before users quit a game.

6

Recognition rather than recall

minimize user's memory load by making options visible

Contextual game controls are displayed directly on the screen in Red Dead Redemption 2 so that users don’t have to recall controls from memory.

7

Flexibility and efficiency of use

allow users to tailor frequent actions

League of Legends provide a smart cast feature enabling the user to have a visual indicator when casting a spell. Expert users can disable it in order to press one less key and cast faster.

8

Aesthetic and minimalist design

extra unit of information should be relevant and justified

The Journey is an indie adventure game very different from usual games. The information provided to the user is minimalist and foster exploration.

9

Help users recognize,
diagnose, and recover from errors

error messages should be clear and suggest a solution

World of Warcraft inform the user how to connect when an error has been commited while logging in the game.

10

Help and documentation

provide documentation but do not rely on it only

Albion Online, like many other MMORPGs, provide clear and well organized documentation for players

Usability Checklist

teamsucces.io/UX

additional information to help you spot
common usability problems in your design

Number of Evaluators

$ProblemsFound(i) = N(1-(1-l)^i)$
  • $i$ is the number of independent evaluators;
  • $N$ is he total number of usability problems;
  • $l$ is the % usability problems found by a single evaluator (μ=34%);

Nielsen and Landauer (1993)

Further reading