Using Ergonomic Rules for Evaluation by Linguistic Ergonomic Criteria

Heuristic Evaluation is a well established method for evaluating a user interface (UI) of an interactive application [1]. This method belongs to the class of informal evaluation methods since the evaluation is performed on the basis of evaluator expertise and knowledge. One characteristic of heuristic evaluation is to guide evaluators by providing them a small set of predefined heuristics rather than a long list of general guidelines. Evaluators are given a widely applicable description of these heuristics so that they are general and largely applicable [2]. In evaluation by ergonomic criteria [3], heuristics that have been judged too general are replaced by a taxonomy of eight main ergonomic criteria (i.e., guidance, workload, explicit control, adaptability, error management, consistency, significance of code, compatibility). These criteria could be decomposed into subcriteria leading to eighteen elementary (sub-)criteria. These criteria present at least three advantages : 1. they are precisely defined, especially when distinguishing between concurrent criteria; 2. they have been experimentally tested and validated; 3. they could be directly linked to useful ergonomic rules (or guidelines). In this paper, we introduce the evaluation by linguistic ergonomic criteria which is an extension of the latter method. First, the reasons that motivated this extension are presented by showing their definition. Second, first steps toward a complete evaluation method are outlined. Third, we exemplify this approach by detailing a UI evaluation report. Finally, we discuss our experience with this work in progress.