Heuristic Evaluation For CS4760 & HU4628 Group 3 -- BAER Can Li (canli@mtu.edu) 2/17/2015 Background: The primary mission of BAER Teams is to protect lives, property and sensitive habitats from post-fire effects. Once the danger posed by an active wildfire has passed, land managers must rapidly assess the threat from post-fire runoff and erosion due to the loss of surface cover and fire-induced changes in soil properties. Increased runoff and sediment delivery are of great concern to both resource managers and the public. Post-fire assessments and proposals to mitigate these threats are typically undertaken by interdisciplinary BAER teams. These teams are under very tight deadlines, so they often begin their analysis while the fire is still burning and typically must complete their plans within a couple of weeks. One of the primary information sources for making decisions is a burn severity map (derived from earth observations) that reflects fire induced changes in vegetative cover and soil properties. Burn severity maps can be improved upon with field observations of ground cover and measurements of soil hydrophobicity. This app will allow BAER Teams to gather, compile and share observations in an electronic format while they are in the field. Time is limited therefore an app that saves time would be very useful. 1
Table of Contents 1. BAER App Design Description... 3 2. Identification of the UI Domain... 4 3. Heuristic Usability Principles... 5 4. Potential Usability Problems... 6 5. Critical Usability Concerns... 7 5.1 Concerns... 7 5.2 A Short Story... 7 6. Appendix... 8 2
1. BAER App Design Description BAER App is designed for BAER Teams to collect field data from post-fire areas and the upload those data. Besides, Group 3 members will develop a database storing the data so that domain scientists may retrieve the data if they need. This App is based on Android platform and contains four parts related to UI domain: New Form -- create a new field data form and requires the user to fill in all entries step by step Edit Form -- edit existed forms Sycn Form -- synchronize selected forms to the database Help -- offer help information for the above functionalities. 3
2. Identification of the UI Domain The UI domain of BAER App can be named as Mobile Data Logger, since this app is designed for collecting all field data from post-fire areas used by BAER Teams. The app should concentrate on accuracy of including all data type they need and convenience of recording those data. 4
3. Heuristic Usability Principles The following 10 principles for interaction design is developed by Jakob Nielsen [1]. Visibility of system status The system should always keep users informed about what is going on, through appropriate feedback within reasonable time. Match between system and the real world The system should speak the users' language, with words, phrases and concepts familiar to the user, rather than system-oriented terms. Follow real-world conventions, making information 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 dialogue. Support undo and redo. Consistency and standards Users should not have to wonder whether different words, situations, or actions mean the same thing. Follow platform conventions. Error prevention Even better than good error messages is a careful design, which prevents a problem from occurring in the first place. Either eliminates error-prone conditions or check for them and present users with a confirmation option before they commit to the action. Recognition rather than recall Minimize the user's memory load by making objects, actions, and options visible. The user should not have to remember information from one part of the dialogue to another. Instructions for use of the system should be visible or easily retrievable whenever appropriate. Flexibility and efficiency of use Accelerators -- unseen by the novice user -- may often speed up the interaction for the expert user such that the system can cater to both inexperienced and experienced users. Allow users to tailor frequent actions. Aesthetic and minimalist design Dialogues should not contain information which is irrelevant or rarely needed. Every extra unit of information in a dialogue competes with the relevant units of information and diminishes their relative visibility. 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 Even though it is better if the system can be used without documentation, it may be necessary to provide help and documentation. Any such information should be easy to search, focused on the user's task, list concrete steps to be carried out, and not be too large. 5
4. Potential Usability Problems No progress bar or percentage number estimates the progress of filling the form. The users might wonder how many entries remained need to be filled in. This violates the Visibility of system status. Save button appearing in every page is confusing because the users may suppose they have to save every page before hitting Next. I don t think the users have to save the form in every page. This violates Flexibility and efficiency of use and Match between system and the real world. The users should only save the form in the end. What happen if the phone shut down accidentally in the middle of filling in the form. Does the previous data get lost? This violates User control and freedom. I suggest that the app should automatically save and update the incomplete form after the users hit Next. Even if the app is closed in the middle of filling in the form, the user can easily retrieve the last form (maybe with the name untitled ) and continue their work. When the form is complete, the user can hit Save to save the form. If the users want to edit the form, they will open an existed form and continuously hit Next to find where they want to make changes. This violates Flexibility and efficiency of use. I suggest that there should be a way to directly navigate the users to the place they want to change, such as the users can input the page numbers or search something specific. Since the project also includes helping domain scientists retrieve the form, what if a scientist who has this app want to use it to edit the form downloaded from the database in this app? Actually, there is no place to import an existing form from local. This violates Match between system and the real world. I believe if a user have this app and an existing form, he definitely wish to use this app to edit it rather than other ways. 6
5. Critical Usability Concerns 5.1 Concerns The critical concerns is the third item in the Section 4: What happen if the phone shut down accidentally in the middle of filling in the form. Do the previous data get lost? This violates User control and freedom. I suggest that the app should automatically save and update the incomplete form after the users hit Next. Even if the app is closed in the middle of filling in the form, the user can easily retrieve the last form (maybe with the name untitled ) and continue their work. When the form is complete, the user can hit Save to save the form. 5.2 A Short Story The user, Tony, who is a member of BAER team, is using this app to collect field data in a postfire area. He is filling in the form step by step while an interruption happens such as battery died or a call is coming in. After he return to the app, he may find out all existed data are gone and he has to do those over again. This is very frustrating for the user. Very simple way to fix is to automatically save the form after each time the users go to the next page. 7
6. Appendix [1] http://www.nngroup.com/articles/ten-usability-heuristics/ [2] http://www.acm.org/about/class/class/2012 [3] Group 2 Cognitive Walkthrough 8