Heuristic Analysis

• Visibility of system status—The system should always keep users informed about what is going on through appropriate feedback within a reasonable time.
• Match between system and real world—The system should speak the user’s language, with words, phrases, and concepts familiar to the user, rather than system-oriented terms. It should follow real-world conventions. Information should appear in a natural and logical order.
• User control and freedom—Users often choose system functions by mistake and will need a clearly marked “emergency exit” to leave the unwanted state without having to go through an extended dialog. The system should support undo and redo features.
• Consistency and standards—Users should not have to wonder whether different words, situations, or actions mean the same thing. Platform conventions should be followed.
• Error prevention—Even better than a good error message is a careful design that prevents a problem from occurring in the first place.
• Recognition rather than recall—Make objects, actions, and options visible. The user should not have to remember information from one part of the system to another. Instructions for using the system should be visible or easily retrievable whenever appropriate.
• Flexibility and efficiency of use—Accelerators—unseen by the novice user—often speed up the interaction for the expert user to such an extent that the system can serve both inexperienced and experienced users. They also allow users to tailor frequent actions.
• Esthetic and minimalist design—Dialogs should not contain information that is irrelevant or rarely needed. Every extra unit of information in a dialog competes with the relevant units of information and diminishes their visibility.
• Messages that help users recognize, diagnose, and recover from errors—Error messages should be expressed in plain language (no codes), precisely indicate the problem, and constructively suggest a solution.
• Help and documentation—The ideal system can be used without documentation, but it is often necessary to provide help and documentation. This information should be easy to search, be focused on the user’s task, list concrete steps to be taken, and be reasonable in length and level of detail.

Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration’s Recovery Month Web Site
Macro usability professionals conducted a heuristic evaluation on the SAMHSA's Recovery Month Web site to find ways to improve its structure and increase usability. The Web site is used by recovery professionals, persons in recovery, parents, and members of the general public. The evaluation focused primarily on how a user navigates to the different content areas of the site, the structure of each of these content areas, and any special features contained in the site (Webcasts and Web chats). After conducting the analysis, it was determined that redesign could occur at two levels: the multimedia section and the homepage. Macro usability professionals and information architects then used the results of this analysis to work with developers to design wireframes, or prototypes for demonstration and evaluation by the clients. After client buy-in, the heuristic evaluation and wireframes were used as blueprints for the site redesign process.