Problem Prioritization in Usability Evaluation: From Severity Assessments Toward Impact on Design

Severity assessments enable prioritization of problems encountered during usability evaluations and thereby provide a device for guiding the utilization of design resources. However, designers' response to usability evaluations is also influenced by other factors, which may overshadow severity. With the purpose of enhancing the impact of severity assessments, this study combines a field study of factors that influence the impact of evaluations with an experimental study of severity assessments made during usability inspections. The results show that even in a project receptive to input from evaluations their impact was highly dependent on conducting evaluations early. This accorded with an informal method that blended elements of usability evaluation and participatory design and could be extended with user-made severity assessments. The major cost associated with the evaluations was not finding but fixing problems, emphasizing that to be effective severity assessments must be reli...

• Type: Journal
• Year: 2006
• Where: IJHCI
• Authors: Morten Hertzum
• Keywords: IJHCI 2006, Problems, Severity Assessments, Usability Evaluation