Nielsen and Molich Heuristics Evaluation

Question:

Discuss About The Match Between System And The Real World?

The evaluation of the design process requires one particular framework or heuristics method along with considering heuristics and framework parts. Therefore, Nielson and Molich Heuristics is considered to perform user interface design evaluation in this assessment. The heuristics contains ten individual heuristics aspects that should be properly emphasized in the evaluation process. The evaluation process considers identification of the issue, location of issue, whether is making any problem with usability or not, and whether it is significant or minor. This evaluation process identifies the issue in details so that later, the issue can be resolved with appropriate remedial actions. The remedial actions are included in further section so that usability evaluation can be formulated in form of strategy. The usability strategy considers operations activities with proper priorities so that intermediate designs can resolve the existing issues in the design. In short, to adhere proper remedial actions for design this evaluation is conducted; remedies are listed with strategy.

This heuristics aspect considers that user should have continuous notification about the system activities and within reasonable time, the system will provide appropriate feedback. The user interface design clearly shows that each tab views solar panel details, battery details, power production information, consumption information, battery panel information, grid panel information, equivalence and chat-box feature. However, the issue stays that the user should have instant notification about system status such as whether charging needed for battery or not, how much power is consumed, how much longer any battery can stay without charge and other information.  

This particular aspect considers user-spoken language, words, phrases, and concepts without showing system-related information. Real world conventions show information that appeared to be in natural and logical order. This user interface follows matched criteria between system and real world aspect of the system. The user can view system details by inputting key information such as usage, amount of power, consumed power, weather details, and others. Therefore, in this aspect, there is no such issue regarding real world and user interaction.

User should be provided undo and redo option, clear form, emergency exit, and cancel option in each function in the user interface. There is a tendency of user to select options without knowing how to operate them and therefore, the user will be locked into the function when it is not properly operated. In this “Helios Solar Home Management System”, user control aspect should be addressed. In each tab, there should be ‘confirm form submission’ and ‘cancel’ option for either going with function or cancelling the function immediately. This aspect cause major problem as user feels system cannot operate as per request when malfunctioning occurs.    

Usability Issues and Remedial Actions

Platform conventions are to be followed as user should not worry about different words, situations, and actions. The consistency in design should address platform independency of the application with systematic means of design and operation. This particular user interface should consider platform independency with following conventions. 

Proper error message acts as better way to make user understand about identified problem and how to prevent the problem in the first attempt. The best practice of making error prevention is to handle error-prone situations by eliminating them or checking for them and provide a confirmation option before the user commit to the action. Prevention of user error can be performed either internally or externally. Internally the exception can be devised so that handling exception can prevent the error to happen. Externally, a detailed message can be provided in the user interface so that user can learn about the error and he or she can easily avoid the error easily later.   

The user interface should not expect user to recall the system operation by themselves, rather the user interface should make user remember about the part of the dialogue from one another. Instructions for using system should be visible and Business instructions should be provided whenever required. This particular user interface requires full description and help page where every function should be included with details for new user to learn about it. Any nonprofessional or user, who is not using the system for long, can easily learn about all the functions from the help page.  

The system should incorporate accelerators for speeding up inexperienced and experienced user interactions. The user should be tailored with frequent actions in the system. In this particular system, the user interface is easier for usage already; therefore, this aspect is maintained and no issue is found regarding the same.   

Dialogue box, message box, error message, and other pop-ups from the system should contain compact and relevant information only. This aspect is known as minimalist yet effective way to serve information for better visibility to each user. This particular user interface should consider the same for minimal yet aesthetic design for operating each function in the system. Therefore, the information is to be served with relevance and details in the system generated tabs.    

User interface should provide error message, cause of error, and suggestions for avoiding such errors. Again, in this particular system, the error message should contain all the details informatively to help each user properly.    

Real-World Conventions and Platform Independence

Help and documentation is not necessary; though the system should include feedback section so that user can freely interact with the administration authority. The chat-box feature in the system considers messaging the individuals without serving feedback to the operating administration. Therefore, feedback section should be implemented in the current system. 

Remedial actions in the system can help user to operate the system with better aspects of the functionalities and viewing the information to be served. The remedial actions in this section, are provided to counter the identified issues as per “Nielsen and Molich heuristics” aspects. The actions are listed as following:

1. Notification feature: The user interface should generate instant notification feature regarding whether charging needed for battery or not, how much power is consumed, how much longer any battery can stay without charge and other information.
2. Cancel option: Each function should consider cancel option; the page where user need to input, there should be ‘clear’ or ‘reset’ button for clearing out all inputted information. The page where user need to confirm something, there should be ‘cancel’ or ‘exit’ button to heading back to home or previous page.
3. Detailed error messages: The error message should contain three essential parts. The parts are error message (which error happened), cause of error, and suggestions for avoiding such errors.
4. Help page design: The help page should be incorporated as last part of the use interface. It should contain detailed instructions as how to operate the system.
5. Relevant information: Relevant information should include minimal detail about error, dialogues, and message that user need to know.  
6. Feedback page design: The user interface should consider feedback page so that user can suggest new function suggestions or other errors that should be adhered with remedies.

Usability strategy should be formulated with above-mentioned remedies so that these usability flaws can be fixed easily. The remedies are discussed in details so that developers can address to them with the existing design of user interface. The strategy should consider changing parts of the user interface so that these remedies can be included.

References

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