For this assignment use Jakob Nielson’s examples of Heuristics to review either the Maryland MVA website (mva.maryland.gov) or the White House website (whitehouse.gov)

In this assignment, you will imagine that you are one of the experts being called to do an evaluation of one of the websites.

Nielson speaks about Heuristics in this (video) and more on the subject for your use in this assignment can be found here and here. More resources on the subject can be found here.

What should be in your report:

On this Bb Discussion Board section, post a PDF report that includes the following:

1. Provide a defense as to why the website does or does not meet the heuristics covered. You may provide a table of the list of the heuristics with a yes or no next to the heuristic title to denote whether the heuristic is achieved in your opinion. But you must provide commentary and defend your stance. Your assignment should be 2-3 pages in length.

2. Provide screenshots that help illustrate your points (if screenshots are not possible, provide

sketches)

3. Also provide recommendations on what you would propose to help the website meet the heuristics based on your knowledge gained through the class and beyond.

The primary goal of the assignment is that you thoughtfully defend a rationale for why the system meets the heuristic requirements. Keep the following in mind:

• Your document should be well-organized, easy to read, and free of typos and formatting errors.
• In your analysis, focus on a few of the feature(s) or aspect(s) of the user interface. You should only journey down through 3 levels maximum of the website, that way you are not overloaded with examples. For instance, homepage>about us>Staff>Bios would be three levels down from the homepage.
• Try to avoid using words like “intuitive” and “user-friendly” and be as precise as possible in your explanation of why the website does or does not meet the heuristics. Use your knowledge of the Laws of UX and the modules that we have covered in the close thus far and make explicit reference to them.
• For example, avoid saying that it simply “looks nice” Use your critical thinking, knowledge, and skillful eye to explain what makes it look that way. Don’t just say the interface “doesn’t make sense.” Explain what specifically makes it so.
• You may also use the following as a rubric to assist you:

Overall severity rating on a scale of 0–4
0 = I don’t agree that this is a usability problem at all
1 = Cosmetic problem only: need not be fixed unless extra time is available on project 2 = Minor usability problem: fixing this should be given low priority
3 = Major usability problem: important to fix, so should be given high priority
4 = Usability catastrophe: imperative to fix this before the product can be released (Nielsen)