Usability testing vs. heuristic evaluation

✍ Scribed by Jeffries, Robin; Desurvire, Heather

• Book ID: 120859152
• Publisher: Association for Computing Machinery
• Year: 1992
• Weight: 311 KB
• Volume: 24
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0736-6906
• DOI: 10.1145/142167.142179

✦ Synopsis

Recent research comparing usability assessment methods has been interpreted by some to imply that usability testing is no longer necessary, because other techniques, such as heuristic evaluation, can find some usability problems more cost-effectively. Such an interpretation grossly overstates the actual results of the studies. In this article, we, as authors of studies that compared inspection methods to usability testing, point out the rather severe limitations to using inspection methods as a substitute for usability testing and argue for a more balanced repertoire of usability assessment techniques.