An exploratory study on the predictive capacity of heuristic evaluation in visualization applications

Abstract

Heuristic evaluation is generally considered as an adequate method to perform formative usability evaluation as it helps identify potential problems from early stages of development and may provide useful results even with a relatively low investment. In particular, the method has been adapted and used to evaluate visualization applications. This paper presents an exploratory study aimed at better understanding the capacity of heuristic evaluation to predict the issues experienced by users when using a visualization application and how to assess it. The main usability potential problems pointed out in a visualization application by 20 evaluators using heuristic evaluation are compared with the problems reported for the same application by 44 users.