Interaction design evaluation

The golden rule that every designer must remember is that the designer is not the user. As a result, validating our design is essential for establishing whether it would appeal to potential customers. The capacity of any application to validate its design is critical to its success. The purpose of user interface evaluation is to improve the usability, understanding, and intuitiveness of products and services for users. We may design an assessment strategy and validate user interfaces using evaluation techniques and usability testing(Usability testing is a means to see how simple something is to use by testing it with real people.).

In this article, I am going to describe 5 Evaluation methods.

1. Heuristic evaluation
2. Walk-throughs
3. Web analytics
4. A/B Testing
5. Predictive Models

1. Heuristic Evaluation

Heuristic evaluation is a process where experts use rules of thumb to measure the usability of user interfaces in independent walkthroughs and report issues. Evaluators use established heuristics and reveal insights that can help design teams enhance product usability from early in development.

How to conduct a Heuristic evaluation

1. Know your users and have clear definitions of the target audience’s goals, contexts, etc. User personas can help evaluators see things from the users’ perspectives
2. 1st Walkthrough — Have evaluators use the product freely so they can identify elements to analyze.
3. Know what to test and how — Whether it’s the entire product or one procedure, clearly define the parameters of what to test and the objective.
4. Brief evaluators on what to cover in a selection of tasks, suggesting a scale of severity codes (e.g., critical) to flag issues.
5. Debrief evaluators in a session so they can collate results for analysis and suggest fixes.

Pros

• Because it is done by several people there is a better chance of getting a range of views and picking up more potential problem areas.
• The very act of setting up the heuristic evaluation is a useful exercise as it forces you to identify the root elements of the product and focuses development on the main issues.
• There are fewer practical and ethical issues attached to heuristic evaluation as testers are testing in a virtual space.

Cons

• You are getting opinions and personal observation rather than hard, empirical data from the exercise, and the experts’ own background, attitudes, preferences might color the verdicts.
• You have to do a good deal of analysis and thinking to make sure you choose the right heuristics in the first place. If this is wrong, no matter how good the experts are, you are likely to get less than optimum results.
• Often the problems identified are not critical (or even real in some cases).

2.Walk-Throughs

Walk-throughs are a sort of heuristic evaluation that can be used to predict user issues without having to conduct user testing. A “walk-through” is a method of walking through a task with a product and identifying any usability concerns.

Cognitive Walk-Throughs

Cognitive Walk-Throughs (Cognitive Walk-Throughs) are a Cognitive walk-throughs are used to simulate how users approach problem-solving at each stage of the human-computer interaction. A cognitive walkthrough starts with a task analysis, which outlines the steps or activities a user must do to complete a task, as well as the system’s responses.

The software’s designers and developers then take a group walk through the steps, asking themselves a series of questions along the way. During the tour, data is collected, and then a report of probable concerns is generated. Finally, the program is modified to solve the problems that have been discovered.

The major steps of cognitive walk-throughs are outlined below.

1. The analysis is carried out by a designer and one or more UX researchers.
2. During the walk-through, a list of important information is collected.
3. Each task’s action sequences are walked through by the UX researchers, who place them in the context of a realistic situation.
4. The characteristics of typical users have been discovered and documented, and example activities focusing on the components of the design to be assessed have been produced.

Pluralistic Walk-Throughs

Pluralistic walk-throughs are a popular walk-through technique in which users, developers, and usability researchers work together to complete a job scenario. A pluralistic walk-through invites each person to take on the role of a typical user.

Walk-throughs, as opposed to heuristic evaluation, are more focused on finding particular user problems at a granular level.

3.Web Analytics

Web analytics was established to analyze website user behavior so that designers may make changes to their designs to attract and retain customers. It’s a kind of interaction monitor. They can see how many users visited the site, how long they remained, and which pages they looked at. They can also learn about the users’ backgrounds and much more. Web analytics is therefore a powerful evaluation tool for web designers.

On-site analytics are used by website owners to measure visitor behavior.

Off-site analytics measure a website’s visibility and potential to attract an audience on the Internet regardless of who owns the website.

Google Analytics

Even as early as 2012, Google Analytics was the most widely used on-site web analytics and statistics service. More than 50 percent of the 10,000 most popular websites at that time used Google Analytics, and its popularity continues to soar.

4.A/B Testing

A/B testing, also known as split testing, is a randomized experimentation process in which two or more versions of a variable (web page, page element, etc.) are shown to different segments of website visitors at the same time to see which version has the greatest impact and drives the most business metrics.

In essence, A/B testing eliminates all guesswork from website optimization and allows skilled optimizers to make data-driven decisions. In A/B testing, the ‘control’ or original testing variable is referred to as A. The letter B denotes a new version of the original testing variable called a variation.

The version that increases your company’s metric(s) in a positive way is the “winner.” Using the successful variation’s modifications on your tested page(s) / element(s) might help you optimize your website and boost your ROI.

Each website’s conversion stats are distinct. For example, in the case of eCommerce, it may be product sales. In the meanwhile, it may be the creation of qualified leads for B2B.

5.Predictive Models

With the help of past and existing data, predictive modeling is a statistical technique that uses machine learning and data mining to anticipate and forecast possible future occurrences.
Instead of user researchers role-playing during inspections or recording their activity through analytics, predictive models use algorithms to determine various indicators of user performance.

One of the most commonly used predictive models is Fitts’ law.

Fitts’ Law

Fitts’ law asserts that the time it takes for a person to move a pointer (e.g., mouse cursor) to a target area is a function of the target’s distance divided by its size. As a result, the longer it takes, the greater the distance and the smaller the target.

To summarize, the larger the aim, the easier and faster it is to achieve. This is why interfaces with large buttons are easier to operate than those with many small buttons jammed together.

These are some of the most well-known interactive evaluation methods for assessing your system design. Keep in mind, however, that designers and researchers frequently find themselves having to adapt these methodologies to fit the wide range of products that have entered the market since they were first established.

Hope you found this article helpful! See you in another article!

Thank you!

Reference: Preece, J., Rogers, Y., & Preece, J. (2007). Interaction design: Beyond human-computer interaction. Chichester: Wiley.