Introduction of “Heuristic Evaluation Training

TDC SOFT Inc. offers several UX design-related training services, and we would like to introduce our heuristic evaluation training program.

What you will learn through the training

There are a wide variety of products in the world. Among several competitors, if a company can provide a product that users find easy to use, it will differentiate itself from its competitors and is expected to improve the company’s reputation and customer loyalty. However, some products have fallen into a negative spiral caused by usability, where users complain that the product is difficult to use after it is created, and subsequent adjustments are made, or users stop using the product and leave. To avoid the negative spiral, we can ask experts to design and evaluate the system, but the cost is a concern. Usability means not just ease of use, but usability. Users want to be able to operate easily and efficiently and obtain satisfaction.

If we can acquire knowledge of this usability, design and evaluation methods, and build in a systematic manner, we can naturally avoid this problem. With this in mind, TDC SOFT Inc. offers “heuristic evaluation training. Heuristic evaluation is a process in which experts evaluate products from a usability perspective. The course is designed so that participants will not only be able to evaluate usability like an expert, but will also be able to create and evaluate products from the user’s perspective as a usability expert.

Point (1): You'll remember! Useful! Practice-oriented training

The curriculum for this training is practice-oriented, with one hour of lectures and three hours of workshops.

In the lecture, participants learn the purpose of evaluation, the definition of usability, and the perspective of heuristic evaluation from the beginning so that even beginners can understand and practice. The course then moves on to heuristic evaluation methods, common problems, and countermeasures. The lecture on heuristic evaluation perspectives incorporates many practical examples so that even those with knowledge of heuristic evaluation can gain new insights.

In the workshop, participants will practice the heuristic evaluation learned in the lecture using an actual website. Participants will work in small groups to plan, evaluate, summarize, and report the results of the evaluation, just as they would in a real evaluation. The workshop has been well received by participants, who say that by working in groups, they are able to gain new perspectives that would be difficult to gain on their own.

Point ➁ Can be practiced even by beginners! Original check point of view

If you have learned heuristic evaluation perspectives by yourself and decided to put them into practice, you may encounter stumbling blocks such as difficulty in linking perspectives to specific problems or time-consuming evaluations when actually conducting evaluations. In this training course, evaluations will be conducted using an original check point of view table, which is a compilation of knowledge and points of view that TDC SOFT Inc. has gained through the evaluation of various products in the past, so that even novice evaluators can conduct evaluations just like experts.

If the evaluator finds something of concern during the test, he/she can enter the target screen, target location, problem, viewpoint No., ABC judgment, and frequency in the viewpoint table, and the system will automatically calculate the importance of the problem (CMS judgment). Past participants have told us that they would like to spread the system to their members who were unable to attend the training, as it can be used by anyone.

Training atmosphere just like the real thing

In the first step of the workshop, individual work, each person evaluates the system using a perspective table. The eyes of the participants, looking carefully at the system for usability problems, were as serious as those of the heuristic evaluations performed by the experts.

In the second step, group work, each team member compiles their findings into a single report by comparing and contrasting the issues they have identified. Even if they find the same problem, they may have different viewpoints (perspectives) and different perceptions of the importance of the problem, so it is necessary to reconcile their opinions and come up with an answer. Group work has the unique effect of allowing other members to find problems that have spread from one problem that someone else has found. In the course of lively discussions, many members come to new insights, such as “I thought it was obvious, but now that you mention it, it is indeed a problem,” and this helps them to realize that it is better to respond as a team in the actual heuristic evaluation as well.

Evaluations from participants

Although the training was only half a day, many participants felt that they could take the training back to their own companies and put it into practice, and some said they would like to have their members who were not able to attend the training take it or expand it.

Some of the results of the survey from the participants are presented below.

TDC SOFT Inc. provides not only “heuristic evaluation” training, but also a variety of other UX design-related training programs. TDC SOFT Inc. offers a variety of UX design-related training programs in addition to “heuristic evaluation. In addition to UX design, TDC SOFT Inc. also offers training in the fields of Agile and security.

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