How will you test your interface? Heuristic Evaluation typically employs one of the three main approaches:

• Develop a set of tasks and ask your evaluators to carry them out.
  Identify and test the tasks that are critical to your site's success - you'll want all visitors to be able to perform these - and any elements expected to cause difficulty for your site visitors.
• Provide evaluators with the goals of the system, and allow them to develop their own tasks.
  An example goal might be "users should be able to find out how much product x costs." Evaluators can then break this goal down into appropriate tasks, and test each in turn.
• Ask evaluators to assess your dialogue elements.
  Ask evaluators to go through the interface a number of times and examine and assess the efficacy of those elements of your Website that contribute to a dialogue with your site visitors.

Choosing which method to use will depend on you, the time that you have available, and on your evaluators. For example, if you were evaluating with young children, the most appropriate method would be to develop a set of tasks and ask them to carry them out. Children will find this much more achievable than trying to develop their own tasks, or assessing your Website elements without any obvious aims.

Next: Choose your evaluators >

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Last updated February 17th 2002