Effectiveness of user testing and heuristic evaluation as a function of performance classification

Authors:
  • LFLimin Fu
    Limin Fu
  • GSGavriel Salvendy
    Gavriel Salvendy
  • LTLori Turley
    Lori Turley
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Abstract
For different levels of user performance, different types of information are processed and users will make different types of errors. Based on the error's immediate cause and the information being processed, usability problems can be classified into three categories. They are usability problems associated with skill-based, rule-based and knowledge-based levels of performance. In this paper, a user interface for a Web-based software program was evaluated with two usability evaluation methods, user testing and heuristic evaluation. The experiment discovered that the heuristic evaluation with human factor experts is more effective than user testing in identifying usability problems associated with skill-based and rule-based levels of performance. User testing is more effective than heuristic evaluation in finding usability problems associated with the knowledge-based level of performance. The practical application of this research is also discussed in the paper.

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