On the Double Interpretation of the Description of the “Consistency and Standards” Heuristic in the Heuristic Evaluation Method

Bruno Thomé Júnior, Lucas de Souza Timóteo, Wagner Ferreira da Silva Júnior, Celmar Guimarães da Silva

2021

Abstract

Heuristic Evaluation (HE) is a well-known method for assessing usability in Human-Computer Interaction. Among Nielsen’s usability heuristics for HE, ”Consistency and standards” heuristic (H4) is related to consistency, a relevant concept for usability. However, the description of this heuristic does not deal with some relevant aspects of the concept of consistency. Therefore, the literal interpretation of this description can force some evaluators to search for another heuristic to associate with some inconsistency problems – a search that may or may not be successful. This paper is part of a research that questions if the description of this heuristic must be improved. In particular, this paper aims to understand how evaluators may behave when they do this literal interpretation during the execution of a HE. Our first step towards these goals was to analyze Nielsen’s heuristics in order to search if other heuristics than H4 also have consistency aspects. We also hypothesized how some evaluators may associate these heuristics with specific inconsistency problems. We noted that at least 5 heuristics (in addition to H4) have some aspect of consistency. Besides, we observed that it is possible to construct a logical reasoning that may associate inconsistency problems to one of these heuristics. We suggest that it is worth doing a discussion about extending the current description of the consistency heuristic to include more aspects of consistency, instead of allowing this literal interpretation to deviate evaluators from the expected interpretation of H4 heuristic.

Paper Citation

in Harvard Style

Thomé Júnior B., Timóteo L., Silva Júnior W. and Guimarães da Silva C. (2021). On the Double Interpretation of the Description of the “Consistency and Standards” Heuristic in the Heuristic Evaluation Method. In Proceedings of the 16th International Joint Conference on Computer Vision, Imaging and Computer Graphics Theory and Applications (VISIGRAPP 2021) - Volume 2: HUCAPP; ISBN 978-989-758-488-6, SciTePress, pages 222-228. DOI: 10.5220/0010313002220228

in Bibtex Style

@conference{hucapp21,
author={Bruno Thomé Júnior and Lucas de Souza Timóteo and Wagner Ferreira da Silva Júnior and Celmar Guimarães da Silva},
title={On the Double Interpretation of the Description of the “Consistency and Standards” Heuristic in the Heuristic Evaluation Method},
booktitle={Proceedings of the 16th International Joint Conference on Computer Vision, Imaging and Computer Graphics Theory and Applications (VISIGRAPP 2021) - Volume 2: HUCAPP},
year={2021},
pages={222-228},
publisher={SciTePress},
organization={INSTICC},
doi={10.5220/0010313002220228},
isbn={978-989-758-488-6},
}

in EndNote Style

TY - CONF

JO - Proceedings of the 16th International Joint Conference on Computer Vision, Imaging and Computer Graphics Theory and Applications (VISIGRAPP 2021) - Volume 2: HUCAPP
TI - On the Double Interpretation of the Description of the “Consistency and Standards” Heuristic in the Heuristic Evaluation Method
SN - 978-989-758-488-6
AU - Thomé Júnior B.
AU - Timóteo L.
AU - Silva Júnior W.
AU - Guimarães da Silva C.
PY - 2021
SP - 222
EP - 228
DO - 10.5220/0010313002220228
PB - SciTePress