UX Audit- Part 2
The previous part gave an introduction to UX Audit and two methods- Expert review and Cognitive walkthrough. Read it here if you haven’t!
Now, talking about the other methods…
Stakeholder Interview
It is important to bring UX and business goals together, striking the right balance between those two, that is a key for the project’s success and stakeholder interviews help in achieving that.
They provide necessary insights into the project for our team that is not yet familiar with the day-to-day dynamics of the organization. Additionally, interviews allow us to understand the relationships, work-flow, and attitudes that drive the project.
In a way stakeholders themselves are participants for the study. They are interviewed in almost the same way the other participants
are interviewed.
Before you talk to your stakeholders..
Do your primary research! Before an interview you have to get to know the industry and market that the project will operate on.
Gain as many informations as possible about your client (or the product), his past, goals, mission. Do a research of similar companies on the market to see what are their advantages and — what is even more important — what are their weaknesses.
If the company that you’re working on already have a live product, make sure to spend at least a few hours using it. Write down your thoughts and share them with your client during the interview. It will help you to determine your
interview goals and ask the right questions.
Advantages:
- Research and user feedback can help further develop measurable goals and create a long-term plan for the site
- Analytics and reporting duties are split between multiple vendors. The goal is to construct a holistic view of the user’s experience by examining the full spectrum of the web metrics
- Establishing goals and objectives at the beginning of the project will form a strong foundation and create a shared vision for the internal team members and the vendors throughout the iteration process
- It is a great opportunity to start building trust and mutual understanding which are crucial for successful UX design process
Well, I don’t think there are any disadvantages here! Isn’t it?
Heuristic evaualtion
This is a generic way of addressing the issues on the screen. Heuristic evaluation is a good method for finding both major and minor problems in a user interface. As one might have expected, major problems are slightly easier to find than minor problems (Jakob Nielson)
Advantages:
- Inexpensive relative to other evaluation methods
- Intuitive, and easy to motivate potential evaluators to use the method
- Advanced planning not required
- Evaluators do not have to have formal usability training
- Can be used early in the development process
- Faster turnaround time than laboratory testing
Disadvantages:
- Multiple evaluators are recommended since a single expert is likely to find only a small percentage of problems
- Heuristic evaluation may identify more minor issues and fewer major issues than would be identified in a think-aloud usability test
- Heuristic reviews may not scale well for complex interfaces. In complex interfaces, a small number of evaluators may not find a majority of the problems in an interface and may miss some serious problems
- Does not always readily suggest solutions for usability issues that are identified
- Biased by the preconceptions of the evaluators
- As a rule, the method will not create “eureka moments” in the design process
