Heuristic Evaluation Plan

706.021 Mensch-Maschine-Kommunikation 3VU SS 2006

Group G1-3

Marco Breithuber
Benjamin Hopfer
Eghosa Omoniyi Ikulogun
Ulrich Krispel

Evaluation of the Web Site

http://www.billa.at/

HE Plan of 06.03.2006

1 Evaluation Methodology

A heuristic evaluation is a cost efficient method to test the usability of an interface. It is based on set of the most important usability principles which are called heuristics. A small group of usability experts (evaluators) check the interface against the list of heuristics. The usability heuristics used in our evaluation are described in Appendix A. Each evaluator checks the interface individually and writes down the problems he found in a logfile. The skeleton of this logfile is provided in Appendix B. The evaluators also take a screenshot for each problem found. After each evaluator finished this check, the evaluation manager generates a large list with all problems found into one spreadsheet (see Appendix C) and sends it to each evaluator. For each problem a severity rating is assigned independently by each evaluator. These ratings are averaged and the problems are sorted by their severity. The report presented to the client includes both this list as well as suggested solutions for the major problems.

2 User Profile

Basically everyone cares where he is purchasing his consumer products. So the target group of the site www.billa.at is the whole population. Nevertheless only specific subset of the whole population has the knowledge or needs to use the site. We will concentrate on these specific groups and list them in order of importance:

Bargain Hunters: This group is always searching for special offers to safe some money. We can further specify the age of the group between 20 and 40. Younger people probably won't buy products from BILLA themselves and only a few older people are familiar with using the Internet.
"Vorteils-Club"-Members: Partially a subset of the first group. To access further services of billa.at the users of this group are willing to invest the additional effort of registering. This users will come back frequently.
Online Shoppers: The lack of time or ability to purchase items in a "real" shop forces this user group to buy their needed products online.
The Curious: This group is seeking for further information maybe attracted by some kind of advertisement.
Job Seekers: Searching for an interesting job, they browse the homepages of various potential employers.
Investors: This group is looking for a lucrative company to invest in.

3 Evaluators

Marco Breitenhuber
Benjamin Hopfer
Eghosa Omoniyi Ikulogun
Ulrich Krispel

4 Evaluation Environment(s)

Tabular overview of the different evaluation environment(s) which will be used. Demographic data, hardware, browser, type and speed of internet connection, etc. which each evaluator will be using.

Table 1: Evaluation Environment.
Evaluator	Marco Breitenhuber	Benjamin Hopfer	Eghosa Omoniyi Ikulogun	Ulrich Krispel
Age	20	22	26	28
Sex	male	male	male	male
Web Browser	Internet Explorer 6	Firefox 1.5	Internet Explorer 6	Opera 8
Operating System	Windows XP	Suse 10	Windows XP	Windows XP
Internet Connection	XDSL	10 Mbit	10 Mbit	ISDN
Monitor Colours	32 bit	16 bit	32 bit	32 bit
Monitor Resolution	1280x800	1280x800	1024x768	1024x768
Monitor Size	15,5" TFT	14,1" TFT	17" CRT	19" CRT
Date of Eval.	10. - 17.4.2006	10. - 17.4.2006	10. - 17.4.2006	10. - 17.4.2006
Time of Eval.

Appendix A: Heuristics

A description of the heuristics which will be used can be found under heuristics.pdf

In the hardcopy include a printout of the list of heuristics.

Appendix B: Skeleton Log File

Raw skeleton log file (plain text) for evaluators log-uuu.txt

In the hardcopy include a printout of the skeleton log file.

Appendix C: Skeleton Spreadsheet

Raw skeleton spreadsheet for evaluation manager helist.xls