We examine the practice of heuristic analysis (HA) in preparation for work on the Design Assessment project. Your ultimate goal is to understand the HA process well enough to conduct your own study of the Object of Study (OoS) you select this semester.
Your work on this assignment will result in the completion of 2 documents:
For the complete details about how to submit your work, see Submission Requirements.
The primary focus of this workshop experience is Heuristic Analysis. HA is another research method that comes from UX Design. In the "UX Methods Toolkit," I provide the following description of this research tool.
Heuristic Analysis is an interpretive method that relies on expert examination of design based on an agreed-upon standard of quality. A heuristic is a general principle that you might apply to an experience or object of study, such as a learning moment, research process, or artifact examination. Sometimes we use general principles to assess the relative usability of a thing.
For example, if I were to assess an instruction set, I might evaluate it based on the presence (or lack) and relative quality of features such as properly sequenced steps, clear commands for execution, contextualizing explanations for commands, and feedback mechanisms (such as images). Specifically, I would assess how well or how poorly an instruction set met each of those quality standards.
Remember that your learning objective is to learn from participating in an HA study how you might conduct a study on your own of the OoS you select for your work on the Design Assessment project.
This workshop is designed to offer experience with heuristic analysis in support of your work on the Design Assessment project this semester. During the workshop, you will execute a sample study of the SVSU Canvas interface, review and interpret your data, and submit a summary report of your study.
The workshop has 4 stages.
You may complete this workshop independently or in collaboration with up to 2 classmates. If you choose to work with others, I recommend that you use Microsoft Teams or some other live chat/video conference tool to conduct the workshop.
When you are ready to begin the work, prepare for the study by completing these steps.
Note that I have also provided two resources to help you with your work. See the Workshop Support folder for this workshop. Look for the "Heuristic Summary Poster" from Nielsen-Norman Group, and the article by Dugglrala in the same folder. Both of these offer simplifications or illustrations of Nielsen's 10 heuristics to assist with understanding what he means by each.
Note. If you choose to use Nielsen's heuristics when you conduct your own study of the OoS you have chosen for the Design Assessment project, you'll apply all 10 standards to the design. The same guideline applies to any other standard you might use in your own work.
Use 1 only to reflect a complete failure to achieve the criterion goals. Use 10 only to reflect absolute perfection in achieving the criterion goals. These boundary scores should be viewed as uncommon. Use the following values as touchstones: 3 (more unsuccessful than successful at achieving criterion goals); 5 (moderately successful at achieving criterion goals); 7 (more successful than unsuccessful at achieving criterion goals).
To complete the heuristic analysis, follow these steps.
Once you have completed your discussion, review your notes, and if available, the recording of your work session. Look ahead to the description of the Summary Report to determine whether or not you have enough detail recorded to complete that step of the workshop. Upon reviewing the session recording, do the notes you took during the discussion accurately and completely reflect the details in the recording of your discussion? If not, then refine your notes so you can prepare a more-detailed summary report of your work.
Convert your workshop form to PDF or scan it to JPG. As you move on to the summary report, note that you'll need to attach your workshop form to your discussion post. If you completed the form digitally, convert it to PDF. If you entered notes by hand, then scan your form and export it as a PDF or JPG file.
The final stage of the workshop requires you to craft and submit a summary report. Whether you worked independently or in a team, prepare your own report.
Your summary report should include the following details.
Think about design as you construct your report. Write your report directly in the Canvas Discussion forum designated for the workshop. Doing so limits your design choices, but still highlights the need to use basic design principles to make your content more accessible to readers.
Present your report in 3 separate sections that correspond to the report description above. Within sections, separate individual ideas/discussion points into their own paragraphs or list entries. Signal the beginning of each discussion section with an appropriate heading.
Craft your summary report in the forum dedicated to this workshop on Canvas Discussions. Do not create a separate document for this report. Compose it in the forum. Attach the PDF of your completed Heuristic Analysis Form to your post.
Note: Do not attach the recording of your work session. Do not post it to your Dropbox space either. Doing so will consume storage space you may need later this semester. That recording is for your benefit, however, so you need to store it somewhere where you have access to it.
Note: I provide some visual guidance in the discussion forum for determining how long your report should be. However, the real standard you seek to meet here is that of sufficient appropriate detail. In general, summary reports ask you to provide enough detail to demonstrate to peers and to me that you understood the activity on which you report, and that you completed the workshop as described. If your report is too brief, or if it lacks concrete, specific detail, expect to earn fewer than 50 points for your submission.
This section describes the standards by which your work will be evaluated for this workshop. Attend carefully to these details to earn full credit for this assignment.
There are 50 possible points for this workshop. You will earn points according to this standard.
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